PITTSBURGH — Wednesday’s announcement that the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette will cease operations in May brings an end to a two-century tradition in local journalism.
RELATED COVERAGE >>> Pittsburgh Post-Gazette to publish final edition, cease operations in May
The paper traces its roots to the late 1700s when the “Gazette” launched in 1786 as a four-page weekly paper, making it the first newspaper west of the Allegheny Mountains.
Throughout the 1800s and early 1900s, nearly a dozen newspapers sprang up across the Steel City. Through a series of mergers and acquisitions, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette was formed in 1927 as a merger between the Post and the Gazette Times.
By the late 1960s, Pittsburgh had become a two-newspaper town. The Post-Gazette published a morning edition and the Pittsburgh Press published an afternoon edition.
RELATED COVERAGE >>> Community leaders respond to Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s announcement that it will cease operations
A labor strike in the 1990s changed the course of history for newspapers in Pittsburgh. In 1992, a strike at the Pittsburgh Press lasted eight months. Because of a joint operating agreement between the Post-Gazette and Press, the strike also kept the Post-Gazette off of front stoops and newsstands for that time. At the end of the year, the Block Family, which already owned the Post-Gazette, bought the Pittsburgh Press and folded it into the Post-Gazette.
The merger inspired Greensburg-based publisher Richard Mellon Scaife to expand his Greensburg Tribune-Review into the city. The Tribune-Review went fully digital in 2016, but keeps the Greensburg-based Westmoreland edition and the Valley News-Dispatch in print.
In recent years, the Post-Gazette has struggled to maintain financial viability. In 2018, the paper stopped daily publication, trimmed additional days the following year, and as of today, the paper prints a Thursday and Sunday edition. The Post-Gazette has continued to publish through its website and PG product.
In 2023, a subsidiary of the Post-Gazette purchased the Pittsburgh City Paper, which it closed two years later.
Its financial struggles have also been compounded by one of the longest labor strikes in the region’s history.
Despite financial pressure, the paper’s journalists have continued to break stories and receive critical acclaim. Journalists working for the paper won Pulitzer Prizes in 1938, 1992, 1998, and 2019. The 1938 win was for an investigative report, the 1992 win was for a series of photo essays, the 1998 win was for spot news photography, and the staff won a 2019 Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting.
From Pittsburgh’s brightest triumphs to its darkest days, the Post-Gazette has remained a constant chronicler of the region’s events and opinions. When it ceases operation on May 3, it will mark the first time in 240 years that the city of Pittsburgh will go without a print newspaper.
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