Inside our Newsroom

New partnership to provide Pittsburgh with more investigative journalism about the state government

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For the past decade, there’s been nothing short of a crisis in our state capital. More and more of Pennsylvania’s sprawling and costly bureaucracy operated without scrutiny from investigative reporters, the watchdogs tracking how our hard-earned tax dollars are spent and demanding answers from lawmakers about waste, fraud and abuse. Together, we can restore accountability. I’m proud to introduce you to Spotlight PA, an ambitious, statewide, and reader-funded newsroom based in Harrisburg with the mission of holding the powerful in Pennsylvania to account through hard-hitting investigative journalism. Spotlight PA is an unprecedented collaboration born of the grit and determination that makes our state great, and it now provides high-quality state government and statewide reporting at no cost to 75 community newsrooms across Pennsylvania.

FIRST PERSON
rally_StopAsianHate

As a Han Chinese woman in Pittsburgh, I see the Atlanta massacre exposing how media, government and academia fail Asian women

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Six weeks after I moved to Pittsburgh to begin a graduate program, a mass shooting took place at a synagogue 2 miles from my apartment. Six weeks before my departure, another mass shooting hit close to home. 

This time, the hate crime took place in another state, but it targeted Asian women. On March 16, eight people were gunned down at three Asian spas in the Atlanta suburbs – two Han Chinese women, four Korean women, and two white bystanders. The victims’ names are Tan Xiaojie; Feng Daoyou; Yue Yong Ae; Kim Suncha; Park Soon Chung; Hyun Jung Grant; Delaina Ashley Yaun; and Paul Andre Michels. A ninth bystander, Elcias Hernandez Ortiz, remains in the hospital.

Inside our Newsroom
image of pittsburgh skyline and rivers

PublicSource nabs 3 nominations for 2020 international online journalism awards

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PublicSource, a nonprofit newsroom serving the Pittsburgh region, has been named as a finalist for general excellence, cross-newsroom collaboration and explanatory reporting in the 2020 Online News Association awards. The prestigious awards honor excellence in online journalism worldwide. PublicSource is a finalist for General Excellence in Online Journalism in the micro newsrooms category (newsrooms fewer than 15 people) along with El Paso Matters, Idaho Education News and Voice of San Diego.  

Two PublicSource projects were also named finalists in separate categories. 

The Good River project, launched in November 2019 as a regional collaboration, was named a finalist for the Excellence in Collaboration and Partnerships Award. The Good River project was led by PublicSource and produced in partnership with six other nonprofit newsrooms: 100 Days in Appalachia, The Allegheny Front, Belt Magazine, Environmental Health News, Eye on Ohio and Louisville Public Media. Journalists in seven nonprofit newsrooms – spanning five of the 15 Ohio River watershed states — worked for 10 months to produce nonpartisan, engaging and stunning journalism on the watershed.

Inside our Newsroom

PublicSource wins awards for 2019 reporting and thanks storytellers and the community for their trust

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PublicSource has been honored with six state, regional and national awards for coverage in 2019. From toxic chemicals in the environment to first-person perspectives on mental health and a deep look at what it means to live on low wages in Western Pennsylvania, these awards honor excellent reporting of stories often left untold. 

While PublicSource does not measure its impact in awards, we believe it’s important to recognize the work of journalists and express gratitude to the people who trusted PublicSource with their stories. 

Below are the highlights: 
Good River: Stories of the Ohio
PublicSource visuals producer Ryan Loew, Allegheny Front managing editor/reporter Julie Grant and Pittsburgh-based freelance photographer Njaimeh Njie were honored for their work in the Good River: Stories of the Ohio project. They received first place for environmental reporting in the Society of Professional Journalists’ [SPJ] Keystone State Chapter Spotlight Contest. A judge wrote that, “this entry’s multiple stories were impeccably reported, meticulously researched, crafted with precision and great storytelling effects. What a remarkable collection of stories centered around pollution on the Ohio River.”

Good River project team members also won first place for best environmental reporting in the Cincinnati SPJ awards for excellence in journalism.

SOCIAL JUSTICE
J. Oliver Choo is a graduating senior from Fox Chapel Area High School.

Black Fox Chapel students have spoken up about racism in our school district. Now students like me are no longer afraid to share our experiences.

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Until a month ago, I was proud of graduating from Fox Chapel Area High School. I was grateful for the enthusiastic faculty as well as the friendships I had made. However, the recent controversy surrounding racism at Fox Chapel has compelled me to revisit my own experience with prejudice at the school – one that I have tried hard to forget. My ethnicity is half-Taiwanese and half-Korean. My heritage is known for its legendary empires, scientific innovation and excellent cuisine.

SOCIAL JUSTICE

‘Welcome to the movement’: Hundreds rally against police brutality, racism at Allderdice, in Bloomfield and Fox Chapel

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Hundreds gathered at Allderdice High School and in Bloomfield and Fox Chapel borough on June 11, the 13th day of Black Lives Matter protests in Pittsburgh. 

Those in attendance carried signs, participated in chants and listened to impassioned speakers who called on the crowds to show solidarity with Black students and residents in the Pittsburgh area along with those who have experienced police brutality. "Welcome to the movement because we are going to need every single one of you ... Oppressive institutions don't get to tell the oppressed how to fight for their freedom." —State Rep. Summer Lee

In Bloomfield, skateboarders convened to honor George Floyd and others taken by police violence. At one point in their rolling march, they shut down traffic on Bloomfield Bridge and the Black Lives Matter demonstration ended in Friendship Park.

SOCIAL JUSTICE
A resident lights a candle for Breonna Taylor during a demonstration in Lyndhurst Green on June 5, 2020. (Photo by Jay Manning/PublicSource)

As Black Lives Matter marches go on, Pittsburgh launches a task force to find “people intent on causing destruction”

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Pittsburgh protesters on Friday honored what would have been the 27th birthday of Breonna Taylor, who was fatally shot in March by police officers in Kentucky. On the same day, the seventh of anti-racist demonstrations locally, the Pittsburgh police bureau announced a multi-agency task force to target the “small group of people intent on causing destruction” amid the largely peaceful protests. The task force, formed earlier this week, has already launched investigations into: “...people who have attacked journalists, looted business, caused property damage and committed other crimes such as arson,” the press release stated. Protesters gathered in Friendship Park in Bloomfield at noon Friday calling for an end to system racism and police brutality against Black citizens and protesters. The hundreds in attendance marched from Friendship Park about 2 miles to Lyndhurst Green in Point Breeze, where they stopped to hold a vigil in honor of Taylor and her birthday. 

Louisville, Kentucky police officers killed Taylor at the age of 26 in her home on March 13.

COVID-19
Cristie Bloom with her husband, Chris Gabuzda, and their four children ( Lillian, 9; Miles, 8; Eleanor, 6; Elias, 4). (Courtesy photo)

In search of another large, cautious Pittsburgh-area family to join our ‘quarantine pod’

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The world as we know it changed when COVID-19 surfaced and brought with it new ideas about what it means to be safe. I trust in science and appreciate the need to minimize risk, but maximizing the opportunity for my family's happiness is also important. 

As we move forward into this new world where social distancing, masks and the constant smell of sanitizer are expected to continue without an end in sight, the future looks brighter with the thought of friends by our side. 

So, one night, in the middle of our latest Netflix binge, I asked my husband how he would feel about finding another family to quarantine with us. He stared at me blankly and laughed. "How would that even work? How would we know that another family would follow the same precautions that we're taking?