Public Source at 15: Reader support made 15 years possible and shapes what comes next

Tuesday, Sept. 28: Thank you for celebrating 15 years with us. There’s still time to give!

A lot has changed since 2011 in our city, across our region, around the world. But our core mission at Public Source has remained the same: to inform and inspire the Pittsburgh region through the power of deep, independent journalism.

It’s impossible to capture 15 years of work in just 15 days. But throughout our anniversary campaign, we’ve enjoyed looking back with you at some of the stories, moments and people that have shaped who we are today.

As we reflect on how far we’ve come, one thing is clear: we would not be here without reader support. Reader donations power our work, and allow us to continue asking questions, following leads and documenting the people and neighborhoods that make up our region. Your support helps ensure that we can continue doing this work for years to come.

Today is the last day to donate for our 15th anniversary campaign. Can you help us meet our $15,000 goal?

Monday, Sept. 28: Helping Pittsburghers tell their stories, in their own words

Our journalists work hard to tell important stories for our region. But some stories are best told by the people who lived them, in their own words.

That’s why we started our first-person essay series in 2016. Over the last 10 years, we’ve helped hundreds of community members share deeply personal stories tied to our region through a collaborative editorial process. Essayists are paid after their stories are published, because their stories and their labor have value. These essays bring a broad range of perspectives to our readers, and their impact often goes beyond the page.

Here are just a few highlights from the last 10 years:

• Allegheny County researcher Nick Cotter’s essay about the disproportionate impact of gun violence on Black communities was later cited in several law review journals.
• After the Fern Hollow Bridge collapsed in 2022, nearby resident Katherine Davoli reflected on the impact of the event on a personal and community level, sharing her thoughts on how plans to replace it highlighted the tension between modern infrastructure and ecological conservation.
• George McClure, a member of the board of directors for the National Kidney Foundation Serving the Alleghenies, wrote about his experience with kidney disease, using his personal story to bring awareness to the disease and point out racial disparities in kidney care. After the publication of his essay, he was invited to speak to local student doctors about his experiences.
• Bloomfield-based writer Mary Schinhofen wrote about how a writers group for older adults helped her find community and cope with grief after losing her husband. Her essay inspired messages from half a dozen readers who were moved by her story, demonstrating the value of elevating perspectives from older adults.
• Zarin Hamid, cybersecurity specialist and disability employment advocate, recently wrote about her experience with disability and work. Afterward, she reflected: “Public Source gave me the space to tell it honestly. I hope it reaches someone who needs to know they’re not alone.”

When you support our newsroom, you’re helping community members feel heard and readers see their own experiences represented. There are just two days left in our 15th anniversary campaign — your gift today will help us reach our $15,000 goal.

Sunday, Sept. 27: Reflecting on where we’ve been and where we’re going

Six months after Pittsburgh’s Public Source launched in 2011, an early-career reporter named Halle Stockton left a newspaper in Southwest Florida to join the tiny investigative outlet as our third staff member. Nearly 15 years later, Halle now leads our award-winning newsroom as editor-in-chief and co-executive director, alongside a staff of 15 other full-time employees.

Halle is one of several Public Source team members who have been here for years and helped shape the publication we are today. Natasha Khan joined as a reporter in 2013 and is now our director of audience and visual strategy. Jennie Ewing Liska served on our board a decade ago and is now co-executive director, leading our business strategy.

To mark our 15th anniversary, we asked Halle, Natasha, Jennie and other longtime Public Source staff members to reflect on where we’ve been, what they’ve learned along the way and where they hope we’re headed next.

How has Public Source changed since you started?

Rich Lord, managing editor, joined Public Source in January 2020: Pre-pandemic, Public Source was a fantastic source for well-researched, fact-checked news and insights on life in Southwestern Pennsylvania. COVID-19 showed the team that our region also needed timely information and resources. Today we’re both deep and highly responsive when we see an urgent community need.

Charlie Wolfson, local government reporter and newsletter editor, joined Public Source in 2021: We have embraced newer ways of getting our reporting to our audience, using Instagram posts and reels, newsletters and YouTube more than ever before. These channels now routinely bring our stories to thousands of people who otherwise likely would not have found them.

What’s a standout memory from your time at Public Source thus far?

Halle: Our “I am a Black girl and…” project, published in 2017, stands out as a turning point. It was our first highly designed, multipart signature project, combining accountability reporting with deep community engagement, including work with local high school girls. It became a blueprint for the range of journalism we could produce. As part of the project, our newsroom also trained to better understand our own biases and think more intentionally about source representation, lessons that still guide our approach today.

Natasha Khan, director of audience and visual strategy, joined in 2013: One of the most powerful projects I’ve worked on in my 13 years at Public Source was The Red Zone, a project about the time in the college school year up until Thanksgiving Break when more than half of student sexual assaults happen. It was the first big project our talented staff photojournalist Stephanie Strasburg produced and it was a mix of heartfelt journalism and strong photos telling the stories of these brave students.

What do you envision for the future of Public Source — the next 5, 10 or 15 years?

Jennie Ewing Liska, co-executive director of revenue and operations, joined in 2018: More Pittsburghers will see Public Source as their local news source, one that is staying close to their borough or municipality, and helping them solve challenges or elevate the stories of their neighbors.

Alyia Paulding, director of membership and development, joined in 2020: I believe that challenging times are ahead for the region and beyond. Accurate, reliable information will be especially critical when things feel uncertain, and we’ll be there to provide it, fearlessly and honestly. And, just as importantly, we’ll continue telling the stories of Pittsburghers seeking connection, finding joy and resilience, and supporting each other.

While our staff has shaped our newsroom, we wouldn’t be where we are today — or get to where we’re going — without reader support. There’s only a few days left in our 15th anniversary campaign. Give today to help us reach our $15,000 goal and sustain independent local journalism in our region.

Saturday, Sept. 26: Partnerships that help us serve our community more effectively

Although journalism is often portrayed as a viciously competitive field, our experience has been that collaboration with people and organizations outside of our newsroom can be richly rewarding. Partnerships add value in multiple ways, including trading learning and tactics with colleagues at other organizations, access to an even deeper bench of talent and expertise, and the opportunity to innovate.

Some of the partnerships we’ve had over the years have been editorial, such as 2019’s Good River, where we joined with six other newsrooms in five states along the Ohio River watershed to tell stories of the river’s past, present and future. We’ve had many stories that were co-reported and co-published with other media organizations, including housing, education and election content with 90.5 WESA, a local comic artist’s journey through recovery with Pittsburgh City Paper, and a look at Clairton after the deadly 2025 blast with the Associated Press.

But many valuable partnerships haven’t been tied to specific reporting. Broadening our view of partnership beyond traditional published stories has sparked creativity in meaningful ways. When we partnered with the Silver Eye Center for Photography for a photojournalism event, a packed room of people engaged in lively discussion about the impact of choosing an image to feature. Our partnership with Define American yielded a resource card, available in five languages, that helps people understand their privacy options when speaking with a reporter.  And we’re currently receiving dozens of zine submissions from people in the Pittsburgh region as part of our partnership with the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh and the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh.

This is only a small selection; there are too many partnerships over the last 15 years to list. We’re proud to have collaborated with so many people who are passionate about our region and its stories. And we’re not stopping now; if you have an idea for a project or partnership, we’re always interested in hearing about it. Feel free to drop us a line.

Support from readers makes every partnership possible, and we’ve got a goal of raising $15,000 by Sept. 30. Help us keep innovating by making a gift of support today.

Friday, Sept. 25: Data, voter guides and live results: How we’re covering the upcoming election

Local journalism plays a critical role in helping people make informed decisions during elections. For the past 15 years, Pittsburgh’s Public Source has provided Southwestern Pennsylvania with nonpartisan, fact-checked reporting on state and local candidates, races and election results.

Our newsroom is always looking for new ways to make election coverage more insightful, accessible and engaging. With another election coming up, my colleagues and I are thinking about how we can use data journalism and our digital platform to serve our readers in ways other news outlets may not. Using Python (a coding language), I analyzed two years of campaign donation data for Pennsylvania’s two gubernatorial candidates — more than 50,000 individual donations — and produced a series of charts and maps showing who is spending money to influence voters in our community. We plan to update this reporting as more data comes in ahead of Nov. 3.

We are also putting together our election guide, which involves a less high-tech but equally valuable approach: emailing a questionnaire to every candidate in a contested race in our county. The questions were written with a mix of reader input and our journalistic judgment. That guide, neatly packaging more than 20 elections into one webpage, will go live in October.

And then on election night, as we have for the last three years, we will publish live, up-to-the minute returns from the Associated Press. We’ve worked hard in recent years to refine our results page into one of the most informative in the region.

Help us continue providing reliable election coverage — free from a paywall — with a gift today. There are just 5 days left in our 15th anniversary campaign, and your donation will help us reach our $15,000 goal.

— Charlie Wolfson

Local government reporter

Thursday, Sept. 23: Providing the scaffolding for progress

James Baldwin wrote in an 1962 essay for the New York Times, “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” While Baldwin was writing about literary fiction, that perspective is deeply relevant to journalism.

Our journalism examines inequitable systems and centers the voices of those most impacted by them. Readers tell us how much this work matters to them, including member Emily D., who said, “Public Source investigates the underlying issues that either promote or inhibit the creation of an equitable community.”

This can include:

• Examining the impacts of corporate actions or government policies on residents, such as people whose water was compromised by fracking or a teenager whose access to gender-affirming care ended abruptly
• Examples of residents taking action, like Qiyam Ansari, whose lungs collapsed after an air pollution inversion, inspiring his efforts to get air purifiers to people living in the Mon Valley
• Noting when existing safety nets fail, as in the Red Zone series about sexual assault on local college campuses, or Jeremy Carter’s first-person essay on how the dearth of resources for suicide attempt survivors led him to create a support group
• Investigating broad-scale issues, like changes to public transit that can affect access to health and employment, or how Pittsburgh can have 20,000 vacant homes and a housing shortage at the same time
• Putting issues in historical context, such as following the redevelopment of the former site of Pittsburgh’s oldest Black church, which was demolished in the 1950s using eminent domain.

When people have the information they need to understand the issues shaping their communities, they can be empowered to respond and create change. Can you help us keep our region informed in the future by making a gift today? 

Wednesday, Sept. 23: Halle Stockton on why local journalism is critical to democracy

Democracy doesn’t fail all at once.

It tends to thin out — quietly, at the edges — when people lose the ability to see what’s happening in their own communities, when the institutions closest to their lives become opaque, when no one is watching.

That’s why local journalism matters. Not as a nice-to-have but as infrastructure for democratic life.

For 15 years, Pittsburgh’s Public Source has delivered rigorous, trustworthy reporting on the issues shaping our communities. We’ve continued to ask hard questions of powerful institutions, follow public money and consistently show up for communities that don’t always see themselves reflected in the news.

Local journalism serves as a foundation for civic life. It’s where people can get curious about who represents them, how decisions get made and where the money is going. That understanding becomes the scaffolding for everything else — for engaging with state policy, national debates, global forces. You can’t build civic capacity from the top down. It starts close to home.

When you support Public Source, you’re helping keep our region informed and engaged. You’re strengthening democracy in Southwestern Pennsylvania and beyond. In honor of our 15-year anniversary, can you make a gift today so we can keep doing this important work for the next 15?

— Halle Stockton

Editor-in-Chief, Co-Executive Director

Tuesday, Sept. 22: We believe in transparency for ourselves, too.

As a leading force for investigative journalism in our region, we ask a lot of questions designed to hold power to account. We also strive to be transparent about our own work because we believe that’s a crucial component of building trust.

Here are some of the ways we show it:

• We disclose individual supporters of $1,000 or more on our “Who Supports Us” page, which exceeds the Institute for Nonprofit News (INN’s) recommended policy for donor disclosures.
• We also disclose support from foundations and our media sponsorships on the above page.
• We employ a three-tiered fact-checking system to help ensure that what we publish is accurate. Despite our newsroom’s small size, we’ve been vigorously fact-checking our stories since 2012.
• If we don’t get something right, we’ll respond proactively and transparently.
• We’ve published a clear policy on how our news organization can and cannot use AI.
• We allow our stories to be republished, with proper credit and without a paywall, so that the information is accessible to all.

If you value journalism that doesn’t just give lip service to the idea of accountability, make a gift to our newsroom now and help us reach our $15,000 goal by Sept. 30.

Monday, Sept. 21: Sometimes impact means one person

At Pittsburgh’s Public Source, we know impact doesn’t always look like a policy change or a response from a public official. Sometimes, it’s more personal.

Over the last 15 years, we’ve learned that the impact of our reporting routinely happens at the individual or community level. A story starts a conversation or changes a narrative, inspires one reader to take action or helps neighbors understand each other better.

We regularly hear from readers about how our reporting has resonated with them. Here are just a few examples from over the years:

• On our “Unbalanced” series, which investigates disparities in property tax and assessment practices, one reader commented: “I have dedicated the last 20-plus years to property tax best practices, and this site is top notch.”
• After we published this January 2025 story about the impact of federal policies on refugee resettlement in the region, a reader reached out to say they had “found an organization to assist” because of Public Source.
• After reading our November 2023 story about the city’s severe weather plans for unhoused people following encampment clearances, one reader shared: “This article educated me and helped remove some of the very negative bias I have towards [the] homeless. TY.”
• In response to Tara Fay Coleman’s first-person essay, “My parents’ premature deaths made public health a personal reality,” a reader wrote: “I just wanted to thank Public Source for Tara Coleman’s article that was so thoughtful and well-written. It did bring tears to my eyes, because it was so true, sad, and yet so full of the love she had for her parents.”

We believe this kind of impact matters. A reader feeling understood, changing their perspective or helping their community can all contribute to a better region. When you give to Public Source, you make this impact possible. Please consider giving today to help us reach our $15,000 goal for our 15th anniversary and continue telling the stories that inform, connect and inspire.

Sunday, Sept. 20: The impact of our reporting can ripple thousands of miles beyond Pittsburgh

Impact has been central to our mission at Pittsburgh’s Public Source since we started in 2011. We believe local journalism has the power to help citizens improve their communities and lives, access resources, advocate for their needs and support their neighbors. That’s why we track and measure our newsroom’s impact, to ensure our journalism is making a difference.

Over the last 15 years, we’ve seen our reporting become a catalyst for change in and beyond our region, bringing attention to important issues and spurring action.

Here are just a handful of the actions our reporting prompted over the years:

• Local: In 2021, our reporting on unsafe conditions at PNC-owned affordable housing in McKeesport prompted repairs, new management and direct engagement with tenants. In 2023, our reporting on the county Air Quality Program’s effort to access money intended for communities was followed by then-Controller Corey O’Connor’s first known audit of the Clean Air Fund.
• State: In 2014, Public Source revealed that more than 30,000 defendants’ fingerprints were missing, prompting legislative hearings and policy changes by local police. The following year, our reporting on the high rate of antipsychotic prescribing in youth correctional facilities led a state lawmaker to convene a legislative panel on the issue and calls for greater oversight, data collection and transparency.
• National: Public Source reporting is regularly cited in academic research, legal scholarship and policy discussions. Its influence ranges from investigations informing policy papers by national advocacy organizations to Ketaki Desai’s 2020 first-person essay about her family’s experience with the U.S. immigration system being cited during a U.S. House Judiciary Committee hearing.
• International: Our 2025 series, “Alcoa Mines Australia’s Forest,” was widely republished in the United States and Australia and helped bring greater attention to Alcoa’s environmental impact, leading Western Australia to strengthen restrictions on the company’s mining operations.

None of this would be possible without readers like you. When you give to Public Source, you’re helping our newsroom produce journalism that can make a difference — in the Pittsburgh region and far beyond We’re celebrating 15 years by raising $15,000 in 15 days. Donate now and help us reach our goal.

Saturday, Sept. 19: Showing up for our community, in person

Community engagement is inherent in local reporting, but we want it to extend beyond the conversations and interactions tied to a particular story. We want our journalists to be present in the communities we cover, not only as reporters but as neighbors, so people know who we are, and we better understand the issues and concerns shaping their lives. We hold ourselves to a high standard in this area for several reasons.

First, we know that building relationships and trust with people in our community makes for better reporting, both immediately and in the long term. Research consistently shows that nearly 80% of people have never interacted directly with a journalist. When those connections happen more frequently, residents know someone they can go to for help getting their questions answered in the future. When the journalist needs to speak with someone who knows a particular subject or place well, they have a more diverse base of sources to approach for information.

We also believe that intentional community engagement is just the right thing to do. Our community deserves respect and genuine connection. Interactions with our neighbors aren’t simply a source of story leads; they help us understand the struggles, strengths and perspectives of the place we live in a deeper way. They build trust and empathy. They reaffirm why this work is worth doing.

That’s why, in 2024, we began tracking our newsroom’s community engagement. We expect each member of our team to complete three community engagement activities per quarter, separate from interactions they have while directly pursuing a story. We’ve logged over 360 activities since then.

Some of these activities take the form of events specifically focused on listening to the community, including our seven town halls in seven days this spring, listening sessions in specific neighborhoods, and co-hosting town hall debates for candidates for elected office.

But many activities are on a smaller, more informal scale. Here are just a few types of engagement activities that our team has had.

• Attending farmer’s markets, where we chatted with residents and community leaders and handed out free copies of our neighborhood zine
• Participating in regular meetings of Pittsburgh’s cross-newsroom Media Advisory Committee, where residents interface with journalists to provide feedback on media coverage 
• Presenting about news literacy at a local professional development session for educators
• Holding neighborhood walkabouts, where staff hit the streets, get familiar with local businesses and community resources, and get to know residents through casual conversation
• Hosting “Coffee and Conversations” networking events that brought groups together by industry, geography or interest to have meaningful discussions on topics including real estate, the nonprofit field, southern communities, youth and disability, and more
• Tabling at community events with a wide range of themes, including lectures, filmmaking, resource fairs, sports, biking and pedestrian fairs 
• Presenting at lifelong learning classes for older adults held in partnership with a local university
• Holding community-facing workshops on storytelling, zine making and using data to answer questions about your neighborhood.

If you have a suggestion for how we can engage with your community, we’d love to hear about it. Send us an email at info@publicsource.org to let us know.  

If you value this approach to journalism, help us keep doing it. We’re celebrating 15 years by raising $15,000 in 15 days. Donate now and help us reach our goal.

Friday, Sept. 18: We’re with you through the everyday — and the unforgettable days

Pittsburgh’s Public Source has covered tremendous change in our region throughout the last 15 years, but few things compare to the upheaval of the COVID-19 pandemic.

When the world abruptly changed in March 2020, Public Source shifted to a fully remote newsroom and worked tirelessly to ensure our community had credible, timely information to navigate an uncertain and rapidly shifting environment — free from a paywall.

Our reporting provided updates on a daily basis, tracking the rise in local cases and documenting the community’s transition from a mandated shutdown. We also looked at the impact on Pittsburgh and its residents, students, businesses and essential workers. As the pandemic evolved, so did our coverage — from critical information on vaccines and the ongoing effects on communities, to publishing diverse firsthand perspectives.

When the stakes were high and our region needed a trusted source of information, Public Source was there. And we’ll continue to show up when our region has important questions or faces change — whether the issue is emerging health concerns, access to food and housing, government decisions that affect daily life or anything else that matters to you. But we can’t do it without you.

We’re celebrating 15 years by raising $15,000 in 15 days. Donate now and help us reach our goal.

Thursday, Sept. 17: 15 years of holding powerful interests accountable

Local journalism is essential to accountability, whether it’s city government, a small-town council, an academic institution or a corporation. Since 2011, Pittsburgh’s Public Source reporters have been asking hard questions and following the facts and the money to understand the systems shaping people’s everyday lives.

Here’s just some of the people and entities we’ve held to account:

• 2014: The nonprofit status of the NFL. What the city and county governments pay their employees (an annual installment)
• 2016: A public utility, which narrowly avoided catastrophic failures
• 2017: A local university that updated its honor code to remove zero-tolerance policies around self-harm and suicide after our reporting on it
• 2021: Allegheny County Jail, where restraint chairs were used on incarcerated people more than at any other county jail in the state
• 2021: A locally headquartered bank with a national footprint and ownership of housing communities that had unsafe conditions
• 2023: Operators of a local juvenile detention facility faced with extensive safety complaints
• 2023: The local housing authority accused of “placing vulnerable people at risk of homelessness”
• 2026: Police and officials in Springdale, an Allegheny County borough where debates over ICE and data centers have resulted in arrests and calls for resignation
• 2026: The Allegheny County Sheriff’s Office, which we challenged in court over the withholding of law enforcement names.

We’re celebrating 15 years by raising $15,000 in 15 days. Will you help us reach our goal with a gift today?

Wednesday, Sept. 16: 15 years of Pittsburgh’s Public Source, by the numbers

We started in 2011 as a tiny publication that operated out of Pittsburgh Filmmakers’ Oakland office. Over the past 15 years, we’ve grown into an award-winning independent, nonprofit newsroom trusted by readers across the Pittsburgh region and recognized both locally and nationally for our impactful coverage.

And while our story is about much more than numbers, the numbers help to illustrate just how far we’ve come. For instance…

THEN: We started with just two full-time staff members in 2011.
NOW: We now have a staff of 16 full-time employees, plus several interns each semester.

THEN: 27 people donated to Public Source in 2015, the year we became a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and began accepting gifts.
NOW: We have 1,500+ current Public Source members — donors who have given at least once in the past 12 months.

Here’s some other numbers worth noting:

• 4,700+ stories published.
• Over 360 community engagement activities by Public Source team members since we began tracking in 2024.
• 170+ combined years of professional experience across our full-time staff.
• 121 interns trained by Public Source, helping prepare the next generation of journalists.
• 5 neighborhood zines published since last year, with more to come.

Help us keep growing. Your gift today will help Public Source continue covering the stories that matter to our region, reaching more readers and finding new ways to engage with our community.

We’re celebrating 15 years by raising $15,000 in 15 days. Will you help us reach our goal with a gift today?

Tuesday, Sept. 15: Supporting democracy in our region for 15 years

Pittsburgh’s Public Source is turning 15! To celebrate, we’re launching a campaign today to raise $15,000 for our nonprofit newsroom — in just 15 days. 

We’re kicking it off on the International Day of Democracy, a day established by the United Nations to reflect on the state of democracy around the world and the role all of us play in strengthening it. 

Since 2011, Public Source has supported a healthy democracy in Southwestern Pennsylvania by giving people the information they need to participate in civic life. Our journalism helps residents vote, engage in public meetings and advocate for their neighborhoods, while holding powerful people and institutions accountable.

Here are some of the ways we do this:

• Preparing readers for the polls with voter guides for state and local elections
• Covering the local impact of federal policies, from federal immigration crackdowns to higher education funding cuts
• Shining a light on public spending by analyzing local government payroll data — and challenging institutions when they withhold information that should be available under state law

When you support Public Source, you help make this reporting possible and ensure that it remains free and available to all — because democracy works best when everyone has the information they need to participate.

Make a gift today to help us reach our $15,000 anniversary goal and keep our vital public service going for the next 15 years.