Several months ago when the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette announced that it would cease publication on May 3, the consternation throughout the region was immediate and heartfelt, especially after the resolution of a strike that had gone on for three years. It took a few days, but it began to dawn on local media observers that choosing to end press operations at the PG on May 3 may have had a particular mustache twirling dimension to it. Few would’ve given the Blocks, the conservative family who owned the paper, credit for being clever enough to troll at such a symbolic level since their contempt has never expressed itself in ironic gestures before.
May 3rd is World Press Freedom Day, a time when local, national and international media take stock of their losses, their victories, the assorted challenges of speaking truth to power and what it means to be a part of the ongoing renewal of free speech and expression in an age of creeping fascism and democratic decay. Did Block Communications Inc. pick May 3 to shut down all publishing operations in Pittsburgh because of the symbolic meaning of that date? Was such a decision really a middle finger to a community that now feared it would become the largest city in the nation without a credible watchdog media presence?
It’s obvious that I’ve been pretty cynical about the motives of estranged brothers Allan and John Robinson Block for a long time, especially after Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential victory resulted in the PG’s rightward editorial drift, but even I doubt that shuttering the paper on World Press Freedom Day figured into their plans for leaving a gigantic hole in Pittsburgh’s media ecosphere. The Blocks have never really been the “cackling in the shadows” type as they’re often portrayed by local legend. In reality, they’re really just ambitious marks who can be easily rolled by savvier sales people adept at separating temperamentally shy plutocrats from their money.
Whether purchasing third-rate, but expensive computer software (which most American newsrooms had rejected), building a new multi-million dollar printing plant that sat idle or paying a notorious union-busting firm millions to cosplay good faith negotiations with the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh, the Blocks have proven themselves more “The Gang that Couldn’t Shoot Straight” than Machiavellian twins. There was never a diabolical method to the Blocks’ madness. The $350 million they complained about having lost over the last two decades wasn’t because of the weight of employee salaries or healthcare obligations. There are too many boondoggles and misadventures initiated by the Blocks to believe that canard. Rather it was always the fault of the Blocks themselves.
The biggest sign of Block Communication’s collective naiveté was a misplaced certainty that striking PG workers would eventually acknowledge the odds against them, return to the fold as a decertified bargaining unit and accept the draconian status quo when it came to employee healthcare coverage, salaries, job security and unfair labor practices. The opposite happened. The Guild won in court more often than not, culminating in the November 2025 U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals decision that ordered B.C.I to restore the 2014-2017 labor contract it tossed in the wood chipper six years ago.
The Blocks appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court for relief from the indignity of paying fair healthcare costs. The prospect of bargaining with the Guild as the union accumulated judicial success was also anathema to the Blocks. The union had been on a winning streak since 2022, though the victories felt pyrrhic at times given the company’s willingness to appeal every loss. After its latest win last November, Guild workers voted to end the three year strike. They were jubilant about returning to the PG newsroom despite B.C.I’s appeal to SCOTUS after its Circuit Court of Appeals loss. Subsequently, after the majority Trump Supreme Court denied its request to issue a stay of the lower court’s order in early January, the Blocks announced that it would be shutting down the PG on May 3.
There was much caterwauling and expressions of outrage about the unseemly end of a 240-year-old regional legacy, but I had no doubt that another news platform would take its place or a deal would be struck with the Blocks to take the PG off their hands. Because strike or no strike, the PG was still a better newspaper than most and deserves to survive this perilous moment in its ownership history.
Though none of the local foundations seemed interested in purchasing the PG, rumors abounded that a group of local entrepreneurs, a hedge fund, two competing factions of the Newspaper Guild and at least one citizens-led group were interested in either buying the PG or its assets. Then on April 14, my own irrational optimism that everything would work out was rewarded with the best of all possible outcomes for local journalism and the future of the newspaper that had employed me for more than three decades. On that day, Block Communications confirmed that it would sell the PG and its assets to the Venetoulis Institute for Local Journalism, a Maryland-based nonprofit that currently publishes the Baltimore Banner.
Even without knowing the details of the sale, I was psyched. There was no indication of how many jobs would be cut, if the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh would be recognized, or even who will be making the hiring decisions and managing the paper on a daily basis. Still, the sale represented a clean break with the Blocks and a tangible hope for the birth of a newspaper in Pittsburgh more receptive to community feedback given Venetoulis’ track record in Baltimore.
Many of my former union brethren who maintained the picket lines for three years were initially concerned that Venetoulis would be the kind of white knight that hates unions and would use the excuse of rebuilding the paper to clean house of potentially troublesome employees with little inhibition about fighting with publishers or newsroom managers. Recently, however, Venetoulis announced that it will recognize the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh even as it assembles a new editorial team from the more than 130 applicants vying for less than a hundred jobs.
The Venetoulis Institute is willing to fund Pittsburgh journalism at $30 million for the next five years. Venetoulis built the staff of the Banner from seventy in 2022 to 125 as of November 2024. That’s an impressive amount of growth for any newspaper staff when most of the industry is cutting positions dramatically. Last year, the Baltimore Banner won the Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting on overdose deaths in Baltimore. The fact that Venetoulis is willing to fund the PG at the same level as a proven commodity like the Banner speaks their commitments. The nonprofit’s level of generosity might even prompt the region’s deep-pocketed foundations to also contribute to the success of a revamped PG with grants for long-term investigative projects, short-term local enterprise reporting and continuing education for the staff in the uses and abuses of social media.
It’s not enough to know vaguely that AI chatbots and recreational apps undermine reality-based journalism to the detriment of our democracy. All journalists need to be adept at both using technology and understanding its limitations. Grizzled veterans and those who were writing for student publications just a few years ago will always need refresher courses that enhance the skill-sets and values that contribute to journalism’s best practices. We live in an era when too many publishers have turned to AI to produce formulaic stories and opinions for their readers. A robust, scrappy, ink-stained, shoe leather generated journalism is the best antidote to the bloodless narratives, passive voice and hallucinations of AI generated “reporting.”
Besides learning how to tell America’s stories in ways AI will never be capable of doing, the newly hired staff of the PG will have to work hard to convince a new audience, including a generation of skeptical young people, that the democratic formation that comes with engaging a (mostly) online newspaper isn’t a bad thing.
In fact, the ritual of subsidizing the existence of a trusted news platform with a paid subscription is a very good thing. It has enormous benefits for democratic discourse. Whatever the new PG charges for an annual subscription, it will be worth it.
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Two weeks ago, the employees of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette were invited to reapply for their jobs and to submit to twenty minute interviews with representatives from Venetoulis. I’m sure it was anxiety producing for all involved, especially for those who fought a successful battle for the dignity of labor at the PG for three years, now recognized as the longest newspaper strike in American history. My affection for everyone in the union is so high that I want them all to be rewarded with decent, living wage level jobs even if their current salaries aren’t feasible under the new ownership just yet. The size of the PG has to be rescaled to fit local demand and economic realities that escaped good-faith bargaining during the heat of the strike.
I’m also deeply grateful to Venetoulis for rescuing Pittsburgh from inclusion on the list of major cities without newspapers. The Blocks have made it clear that Venetoulis was not the highest bidder, yet they chose to sell it to the Baltimore-based nonprofit rather than to a rapacious hedge fund that would have stripped it for parts and resources before moving on.
In the end, I believe the Blocks simply fell out of love with running the most important newspaper in Pittsburgh that has had a large civic presence in this region since before the U.S. Constitution was ratified. They didn’t enjoy losing millions annually and they loathed the idea that a union had the right to provide a check against their ambitions at their own newspaper. I can’t help but think that rather than impose the worst of all possible options on this city, the Blocks decided that their final civic act in Pittsburgh would be to pick the best of all possible options — the sale of their flagship newspaper to a nonprofit that plans to invest millions into assuring the PG’s continued success as the paper of record in Western Pennsylvania.
Instead of an extended middle finger to the public on World Press Freedom Day, the Blocks have done something truly remarkable and unexpected that just might mitigate their reputation as bad stewards of such an important asset. They have turned a previously announced execution on May 3 into a celebration we can now call “Liberation Day for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.” After 99 years of Block family ownership, selling the PG to a journalism-obsessed nonprofit with deep pockets seems as good a legacy as any if you’re going to close up shop in Pittsburgh. Perhaps the biggest irony to come out of the last two decades is that the Blocks finally did the right thing when it counted most. It’s doubtful that anyone saw this act of civic generosity coming.
