Here’s where you can still get Pittsburgh news

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s planned closure on May 3 will leave the city without its longtime paper of record.

And while Pittsburgh maintains a dense web of niche and hyperlocal outlets, media advocates say the P-G’s shuttering will leave a troubling void.

“It’s a huge blow to the news ecosystem, obviously,” said Andrew Conte, the managing director at Point Park University’s Center for Media Innovation. “Post-Gazette, since the first pioneers came over the Allegheny Mountains, the newspaper has been there to tell the stories of Pittsburghers’ lives from birth to death.”

Owners Block Communications, Inc., announced the Post-Gazette’s closure Jan. 7, citing steady cash losses and broad media headwinds. The announcement came just weeks after dozens of employees returned from a strike of over three years when a November court ruling ordered the paper to adhere to a 2014 labor agreement.

The Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh, which represents P-G journalists, responded in part by asking people to pledge to support local journalism in a post-Block Communications city.

A woman rests her head on a man's shoulder, looking emotional, while standing among other people in an outdoor crowd. — Newsguild member Stephen Rotstein, who for years worked as a high school sports reporter at the Post-Gazette, stands with his wife, Chelsea Snyder Rotstein, as she tears up in the moments before her husband returned to his job after three years on strike, on Nov. 24, on the North Shore. (Photo by Stephanie Strasburg/Pittsburgh’s Public Source)

It’s not the only recent change to Pittsburgh’s news landscape: A week before the Post-Gazette announcement, Block Communications announced an immediate end to the publishing of alt-weekly Pittsburgh City Paper, which the company acquired in early 2023.

“City Paper, over the past few decades, really found the stories that weren’t being told anywhere else,” said Lisa Cunningham, the City Paper’s former editor-in-chief, emphasizing its arts and culture coverage and the publication’s focus on marginalized communities.

“Some people complained whenever stories were written that were fun and light-hearted. But I believe that joy and wit need a place in outlets just as much as the hard news to balance it out.”

The end of the Post-Gazette and City Paper reflects how Pittsburgh’s news has fragmented in the face of economic struggles. Many local publications are looking for new revenue sources after traditional advertising and subscriptions have faltered, according to Sara Bauknecht, a journalism professor at Chatham University and former P-G reporter.

Hyperlocal publications, which focus on smaller communities, have been hit similarly hard. The Citizen and Valley Mirror, which reported on suburbs north and south of Pittsburgh, closed in 2023 and 2024, respectively. Sonja Reis, who recently revived the West Hills Gazette, said hyperlocal papers keep tabs on school boards and property purchases while helping neighbors understand each other better. But Reis said all local publications face similar headwinds.

“People don’t want to pay for news, but they want it,” Reis said. “That’s the big problem.”

A group of people, including photographers and videographers, are standing and sitting in a dimly lit auditorium, focusing on an event happening out of frame. — Kaitlyn Hughes, news editor at the Duquesne Duke, a student-run newspaper at Duquesne University, listens at the start of Corey O’Connor’s inauguration as mayor of Pittsburgh on Jan. 5, at Carnegie Music Hall in Oakland. Hughes has interned at the Tribune-Review and Pittsburgh Magazine, in addition to serving as editor-in-chief of Off the Bluff, a student-produced magazine. (Photo by Stephanie Strasburg/Pittsburgh’s Public Source)

Longstanding news publications have seen readers slip away because of the abundance of information on social media and online, said Conte. But those platforms can only help so much. Feeds are controlled by personalized algorithms and influenced by the likes, retweets and shares of users’ social media connections. “Fake news,” misinformation and AI-generated news runs rampant on social media, and opens users up to being less aware and less knowledgeable about current events.

Bauknecht said she believes the void created in Pittsburgh by the end of the Post-Gazette and the City Paper will be filled. But how that will manifest remains to be seen.

“We can lament what has been and get discouraged,” said Bauknecht, “or we can be a part of striving to create something more sustainable.”

To help the region navigate the media ecosystem, Pittsburgh’s Public Source has compiled this guide to local media outlets with links and information about each.

Many of these organizations, including Public Source, have regular email newsletters that can help you to stay aware of their journalism.

If you think we’ve missed a credible journalistic outlet (listed in alphabetical order), please email info@publicsource.org.

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