The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette will fold after nearly a century. The paper will cease operations entirely — both its digital and physical versions — on May 3.

The announcement comes on the heels of years of declining ad revenue and internal strife within the newsroom, including a years-long labor strike.

With the paper’s closure, there are concerns that Pittsburgh could become a news desert, leaving locals without a range of diverse and credible outlets to turn to.

The Post-Gazette was led by former Philadelphia Inquirer senior vice president and executive editor Stan Wischnowski. He resigned from The Inquirer in 2020 after a controversy following a headline after the murder of George Floyd.

Block Communications, the paper’s owners, released a statement Wednesday about the shutdown, citing “continued cash losses” that were “no longer sustainable.”

The owners added that the paper has lost more than $350 million in operational funds over the last 20 years.

The paper’s union, meanwhile, says the closure is a result of “losing a nearly decade-long attempt to bust unions at the paper.”

Andrew Goldstein, current president of the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh, said in a statement that “instead of simply following the law, the owners chose to punish local journalists and the city of Pittsburgh.”

Post-Gazette staff said they found out about the paper’s closure via a companywide pre-recorded Zoom announcement just moments before the news went public. Multiple reporters told The Inquirer that no company representatives spoke live during the video and that there was no opportunity provided for followup questions or discussion.

In a leaked recording of the Zoom announcement obtained by Pittsburgh’s KDKA Radio, a spokesperson asked staff to continue to publish under “business-as-usual conditions” for the paper’s remaining months. The spokesperson also added that Block Communications would “of course” give the Post-Gazette the opportunity to break the news of the closure first.

Block Communications, the family-owned multimedia company based in Toledo, Ohio, currently owns several broadcast news stations, the Post-Gazette, and the Toledo Blade, the Post-Gazette’s sister newspaper. The Blade is unaffected by the shutdown, owners said.

Earlier this week, the company also announced the closure of City Paper, the Pittsburgh alt-weekly that first published in 1991, “effective immediately.”

The closure will leave the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review as the region’s last major newspaper. Other specialized publications, including the New Pittsburgh Courier and Pittsburgh Business Times, also remain.

Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato said in a statement that she was troubled by the Post-Gazette’s closure, calling it “devastating” for the region.

“This is a major loss to the people of Pittsburgh when it comes to transparency in government, accountability from our institutions, and learning about what is happening in our communities,” she said.

Innamorato added in her statement that she wasn’t sure if Block Communications pursued other pathways for buyers or alternatives to shutting down both the Post-Gazette and City Paper entirely.

“But destroying two legacy papers in a week leaves a gaping hole in our local news environment,” she said.

Block Communications could not be reached for comment as of publication time.

On social media, readers expressed contempt toward ownership for the decision and concern regarding who to turn to for local news.

“This is a huge loss,” one user commented on a Reddit thread about the closure. “Who will do the work of journalism? ... Will we all be going off rumors on Reddit and Nextdoor?”

The Pittsburgh Gazette Times, a weekly publication, was founded in 1786. It’s regarded as the oldest newspaper published west of the Allegheny Mountains. The paper took on its current form as the Post-Gazette in 1927 as part of a merger between the Gazette Times and the Pittsburgh Post.

The newspaper’s shutdown comes on the heels of several internal challenges for the paper over recent years.

In 2019, tension grew between the newsroom staff and Post-Gazette publisher and co-owner John Robinson Block regarding his “bizarre” and “violent” behavior toward employees.

At the time, according to multiple accounts, Block entered the newsroom in an agitated state with his 12-year-old daughter on a weekend night and appeared out of control as he ranted about the newspaper’s union and its employees.

The same year, the paper cut its print edition from daily to three days a week, citing declining ad revenue.

Then came the monumental labor strike.

In 2022, the Post-Gazette saw significant labor disputes, leading to a Guild-approved strike that lasted three years, ending in November.

Block Communications in the statement said that recent court decisions would legally require the paper to follow its 2014 labor contract that it says makes it impossible to keep the paper running.

“The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Blocks spent millions on lawyers to fight union workers, fight journalists and break federal labor law,” said NewsGuild-CWA President Jon Schleuss. “They lost at every level, including now at the Supreme Court. Pittsburgh deserves better and we will continue to fight to make sure all news companies follow the law and serve our communities.”

The company’s statement went on to say it regretted how the decision would affect Pittsburgh and its surrounding coverage area.

The Block family said it was “proud of the service the Post-Gazette has provided to Pittsburgh for nearly a century.”

As for what’s next, Goldstein with the local guild says readers should stay tuned for more from its journalists.

“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,” he said.

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