Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, also known simply as the PG, is the largest newspaper serving metropolitan Pittsburgh in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. Descended from the Pittsburgh Gazette, established in 1786 as the first newspaper published west of the Allegheny Mountains, the paper formed under its present title in 1927 from the consolidation of the Pittsburgh Gazette Times and The Pittsburgh Post.
Type
Daily online / semiweekly print newspaper
John Robinson Block
Tracey DeAngelo
Stan Wischnowski
1786 (as The Pittsburgh Gazette)
358 North Shore Drive
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15212
United States
74,444 daily (101,747 Sunday)
The Post-Gazette ended daily print publication in 2018 and has cut down to two print editions per week (Sunday and Thursday), going online-only the rest of the week.
In the 2010s, the editorial tone of the paper shifted from liberal to conservative, particularly after the editorial pages of the paper were consolidated in 2018 with The Blade of Toledo, Ohio. After the consolidation, Keith Burris, the pro-Trump editorial page editor of The Blade, directed the editorial pages of both papers.[1][2]
Copies are sold for $2 daily & $4 Sundays/Thanksgiving Day in-state. This includes Allegheny and adjacent counties. Prices are higher outside the state.
Financial challenges[edit]
When John Craig handed editorial reign to David Shribman in 2003, Craig told Shribman that the paper was in terrible financial shape. It was around the time of Hanukkah, and Shribman quipped, "It seemed there was only enough oil in this newspaper to keep the light on for one year."[42]
In September 2006, the paper disclosed that it was experiencing financial challenges, largely related to its labor costs. The paper also disclosed it had not been profitable since printing had resumed in 1993. As a result of these issues, the paper considered a number of options, including putting the paper up for sale.[43] While deep concern about the paper's future ensued, negotiations proved fruitful and in February, 2007 the paper's unions ratified a new agreement with management mandating job cuts, changes in funding health care benefits and so forth.
In August 2018, the Post-Gazette ceased publishing daily.[44] It cut down to online editions on Tuesdays and Saturdays and print editions the remaining days of the week. In October 2019, the paper further reduced its paper editions to Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays.[45] In March 2021, the paper cut down again, getting rid of the Friday edition.[46]
Controversies[edit]
Firing of cartoonist[edit]
In June 2018, the Post Gazette fired its long-time editorial cartoonist, Rob Rogers, a previous Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning finalist who had worked at the paper for 25 years,[47][48][49] having joined the paper in 1993[50] and worked under four supervising editors.[49] The firing came in the context of increasing support for President Donald Trump and political conservatism on the Post-Gazette editorial page.[47] Pittsburgh mayor William Peduto (who was both a friend of Rogers' and had been lampooned in his cartoons) called the paper's firing of Rogers "disappointing" and said it sent "the wrong message about press freedoms."[51][49] The firing was strongly criticized by the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh[47] and the National Cartoonists Society.[49] The Association of American Editorial Cartoonists said in a statement: "It's as simple as this: Rogers was fired for refusing to do cartoons extolling Trump. Let that sink in."[48] The paper said that Rogers' dismissal "has little to do with politics, ideology or Donald Trump" but did not provide details.[49] Rogers wrote in the New York Times that the paper's new management had decided, in the lead-up to his firing, that his cartoons satirizing Trump "were 'too angry.'"[50] Rogers said that while editors had previously rejected (or "spiked") an average of two to three of his cartoons each year, under a new supervisor he had 19 cartoons or cartoon ideas killed in the first six months of 2018.[49]
Four months after Rogers was fired, the Post-Gazette hired conservative editorial cartoonist Steve Kelley as Rogers' replacement.[52] After being fired, Rogers' comics continued to be published through Andrews McMeel Syndication.[49] As a freelancer, Rogers was named as a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in editorial cartooning, with the committee citing his "provocative illustrations that channeled cultural and historical references with expert artistry and an eye for hypocrisy and injustice."[53]
Sanctioning of reporter amid George Floyd protests[edit]
In 2020, the Post-Gazette prohibited its reporter Alexis Johnson from covering the George Floyd protests.[54] The Post-Gazette said that Johnson, an African American, had shown bias by making a tweet that highlighted extensive littering from a Kenny Chesney concert tailgate. The pulling of Johnson from the story prompted an outcry from journalists, including the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh and many of Johnson's Post-Gazette colleagues.[54]
Awards[edit]
Pulitzer Prizes[edit]
The Post-Gazette won Pulitzer Prizes in 1938, 1998, and 2019. Photographer Morris Berman maintained that the paper would have won a Pulitzer in 1964 but chose not to run his iconic Y. A. Tittle picture that he took at Pitt Stadium.[55] The photo would go on to win awards, hang in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, be used for the back cover of Tittle's autobiography and used in a Miller Beer High-Life commercial in 2005.
In 1938, Ray Sprigle won the Pulitzer Prize for Reporting for his investigation revealing that newly appointed Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black had been a member of the Ku Klux Klan.
Staff photographer Martha Rial won the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography for her photographs of Rwandan and Burundian refugees.
Photographer John Kaplan won the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography for a series of photo essays on 21-year-olds, which was published in the Post-Gazette and two other papers of the Block Newspapers group.[56] This award cited Block Newspapers rather than the Post-Gazette specifically.[57]
The Post-Gazette won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting for its coverage of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting. The paper was praised for its "immersive, compassionate coverage."[58]
Other awards[edit]
In 1997, Bill Moushey won the National Press Club’s Freedom of Information Award on a series investigating the Federal Witness Protection Program and was a finalist for the Pulitzer.[59][60]
The Post-Gazette also won the Wilbur Award from the Religion Communicators Council (RCC) in 2017 for religion editor Peter Smith's work, Silent Sanctuaries.[61] Smith, Stephanie Strasburg, and Shelly Bradbury were finalists for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting for an investigation into sexual abuse in Pennsylvania's Amish and Mennonite communities.[62]
Politics[edit]
The Post-Gazette historically had a liberal editorial stance. However, it turned more conservative in the 2010s, especially following the 2018 consolidation of its editorial department with that of longtime sister newspaper The Blade of Toledo, Ohio, and the appointment of The Blade's editorial page editor, Keith Burris, a frequent defender of Donald Trump, as the Post-Gazette's editorial page editor.[2] Burris assumed the additional position of executive editor of the Post-Gazette in 2019.[63] In 2020, the Post-Gazette endorsed Trump's reelection bid, the first time since 1972 that the paper had endorsed a Republican for president.[64]