The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the modern iteration of a newspaper that has informed the region since 1786, will cease operations in May, according to an announcement released today by its ownership, Block Communications, Inc. (BCI). The move would cost hundreds of jobs and leave the city with no print newspaper.
The paper “plans to publish its final edition and cease operations on May 3, 2026,” according to a release distributed today by Senior Director of Marketing Allison Latcheran. “Over the past 20 years, Block Communications has lost more than $350 million in cash operating the Post-Gazette. Despite those efforts, the realities facing local journalism make continued cash losses at this scale no longer sustainable.”
Word reached the North Shore newsroom via a recorded message played in a virtual meeting. In that call, Jodi Miehls, president and COO of Block Communications, announced the closure affecting about 150 newsroom employees and likely hundreds more in other departments. The newspaper did not immediately say how many jobs would be affected or whether any employees could be transferred to other Block Communications units.
“Today I am sharing extremely difficult news,” Miehls said in the call. “On May 3, 2026, after nearly two centuries of operating, the Post-Gazette plans to publish its final edition,” Miehls said, citing continued losses since 2007. “The realities facing local journalism have brought us to this sad moment,” she said.
Miehls asked the journalists to “continue to publish under business as usual conditions through our final edition.”
Ed Blazina, News Guild vice president and a longtime transportation reporter, was in the office while the recording was played.
“It was pretty much dead silence,” he said.
Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato said in a statement the announcement is “devastating.”
“I’m deeply worried about the public’s ability to access trustworthy and fact-checked information at a time when misinformation is running rampant online,” Innamorato said. “I’m shocked that a generational Pittsburgh institution will cease to exist.”
She said she would engage local leaders to “assess options for a more robust and sustainable local news ecosystem,” noting Wednesday’s news coincides with the closure of the Pittsburgh City Paper last week.
Threats to close a longtime reality
Blazina said management had often warned of the paper’s shaky finances during his decades at the paper. “If I had a nickel for every time they threatened to close the place, I could have retired 10 years ago.” He has been with the paper since 1992 as one of about 100 journalists hired by the Blocks from the shuttered Pittsburgh Press.
He said the closure of the city’s paper of record will leave a big hole, and he expects that “somebody steps in to fill the void. … I can’t believe that the city and the foundation community would allow a city of this size to exist without a daily newspaper.”
Once a seven-day-a-week print product, the Post-Gazette in recent years gradually pared its delivery schedule to Sundays only. The Tribune-Review, which entered the city market in 1992 amid the Press strike, does not distribute a print version of its Pittsburgh product, but covers city news online.
The closure of the Post-Gazette would put Pittsburgh in rare company, said Dan Kennedy, a professor of journalism and media commentator at Northeastern University.
“I think it is incredibly unusual for a city the size of Pittsburgh to lose what is essentially its only daily newspaper,” Kennedy said. “Pittsburgh is a big city … I can’t think of a city in Pittsburgh’s weight class that is facing the prospect of not having any daily newspaper at all.”
He said the paper had lost some of its national stature as a “great newspaper” in recent years, pointing to a 2020 controversy following the disciplining of reporter Alexis Johnson over a tweet and the departure of longtime editor David Shribman.
What’s next for the city’s journalism landscape is unclear. Kennedy said the city’s civic life will suffer if the newspaper goes dark and nothing replaces it.
“Voting in elections goes down” when local media shutters, he said, “fewer people run for office, corruption goes up. Those are all the ill effects of not having that journalistic watchdog role.”
He said smaller outlets, like a public radio station or other nonprofit, could fill some of the gap left by a closed newspaper, but would be hard-pressed to “be the main event” in local journalism.
Strike’s role debated
The Post-Gazette’s release noted court decisions which, in November, upheld National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) rulings and appeared to end a three-year strike in favor of the News Guild. Around 25 strikers returned to the newsroom on Nov. 24, though litigation between the union and ownership continued. Bloomberg reported that the U.S. Supreme Court today rejected the company’s latest effort to appeal.
A court order to operate under a prior labor contract, according to the newspaper’s statement, “imposes on the Post-Gazette outdated and inflexible operational practices unsuited for today’s local journalism.”
The guild disputed that contention.
“Instead of simply following the law, the owners chose to punish local journalists and the city of Pittsburgh,” said Andrew Goldstein, president of the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh, in a statement. “Post-Gazette journalists have done award-winning work for decades and we’re going to pursue all options to make sure that Pittsburgh continues to have the caliber of journalism it deserves.”
Blazina said the decision to shutter on the heels of the NLRB ruling “could have been avoided” if ownership had been willing to negotiate with the guild.
“For me, the big thing is it didn’t have to happen and for them to try to blame the labor situation for it is just preposterous,” he said. “They could have settled this for probably $2 million and given us handsome raises, and saved money.”
News of the P-G’s closure came just a week after BCI announced alt-weekly Pittsburgh City Paper had printed its last edition. The Blocks purchased City Paper in early 2023 after former owners Eagle Media Corporation began printing Post-Gazette issues while its workers were striking.
The release said the Blocks regret the impact of the decision and are “proud of the service the Post-Gazette has provided to Pittsburgh for nearly a century and will exit with their dignity intact.” Paul Block bought the paper in 1927.
Latcheran indicated that there would be no further comment from the Post-Gazette, and declined to address six questions posed via email by Public Source.
Miehls urged the workers “to please consider the legacy of the Post-Gazette. You are our ambassadors, and the Block family would like to exit with grace and dignity.”
Blazina said that after four decades in the business, he had wanted to exit on his own terms. “I don’t like somebody else trying to end that for me.”
Charlie Wolfson is the local government reporter for Pittsburgh’s Public Source. He can be reached at charlie@publicsource.org.
Jamie Wiggan is deputy editor at Pittsburgh’s Public Source and can be reached at jamie@publicsource.org.
Rich Lord is the managing editor of PublicSource, and can be reached at rich@publicsource.org.
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