Block Communications just closed its Pulitzer Prize–winning newspaper, but its workers hope to keep local journalism alive, with their strike paper in hand and support from residents and officials
As an almost 83 year old Pittsburgher, I remember when the city had two thriving newspapers. The Pittsburgh Press folded several years ago, and I’ve worried about the fate of the PG since the Blocks bought it. There must be something in the rivers that attracts the Bob Nuttings and Blocks of the world. Nutting has destroyed the Pirates; and the Block brothers, a newspaper that’s existed since the 1700s.
I wish the workers could find a way to buy it. I would definitely pay a reasonable sum to get local news and sports from the great journalists I’ve come to count on over the years.
As a new Pittsburgher, I'd be glad to pay $10/month for an online subscription to a liberal Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. It's important to know what's going on in my community, and good journalism is the best way to find out.
This feels less like an unavoidable business failure and more like a deliberate act of retaliation. After losing in court and being ordered to bargain in good faith, the Blocks chose to burn down a 240-year-old institution rather than follow the law. That should alarm anyone who cares about labor rights, press freedom, or democratic accountability.
The real legacy here isn’t the closure—it’s the courage of the journalists who held the longest strike in U.S. newspaper history and still kept reporting through the Union Progress. If Pittsburgh’s journalism survives, it will be because workers and residents refused to accept that billionaires get to decide which communities deserve watchdogs and which don’t.
The reading public, subscribers and the Pittsburgh community are the reason the company has any business interest at all. Why should finance “owners” have control over this paper? Time to rethink and reorganize community journalism.
This follows the shuttering of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting last week. The corporate and oligarchic propaganda machine doesn't want any competition from those practicing real journalism in the public interest. Someone once quipped "They treat the people like they grow mushrooms: Keep us in the dark and feed us bullshit."
Outfits like Dropsite are essential, but don't serve local markets, and Dropsite itself has itself been attacked by SLAPP lawfare.
Without a well-informed populace, democracy doesn't work.
All media should be non-profit and treated as public trusts.
Exactly.
'Cept for FOX and related propaganda outlets, let them pay what they so much espouse, "market rates."
Can this paper be owned by all the workers?
I was thinking the same thing. Or to form a new paper, with a name that's nearly the same.
As an almost 83 year old Pittsburgher, I remember when the city had two thriving newspapers. The Pittsburgh Press folded several years ago, and I’ve worried about the fate of the PG since the Blocks bought it. There must be something in the rivers that attracts the Bob Nuttings and Blocks of the world. Nutting has destroyed the Pirates; and the Block brothers, a newspaper that’s existed since the 1700s.
I wish the workers could find a way to buy it. I would definitely pay a reasonable sum to get local news and sports from the great journalists I’ve come to count on over the years.
Thank you for writing this.
As a new Pittsburgher, I'd be glad to pay $10/month for an online subscription to a liberal Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. It's important to know what's going on in my community, and good journalism is the best way to find out.
This feels less like an unavoidable business failure and more like a deliberate act of retaliation. After losing in court and being ordered to bargain in good faith, the Blocks chose to burn down a 240-year-old institution rather than follow the law. That should alarm anyone who cares about labor rights, press freedom, or democratic accountability.
The real legacy here isn’t the closure—it’s the courage of the journalists who held the longest strike in U.S. newspaper history and still kept reporting through the Union Progress. If Pittsburgh’s journalism survives, it will be because workers and residents refused to accept that billionaires get to decide which communities deserve watchdogs and which don’t.
The reading public, subscribers and the Pittsburgh community are the reason the company has any business interest at all. Why should finance “owners” have control over this paper? Time to rethink and reorganize community journalism.
Wow!
This follows the shuttering of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting last week. The corporate and oligarchic propaganda machine doesn't want any competition from those practicing real journalism in the public interest. Someone once quipped "They treat the people like they grow mushrooms: Keep us in the dark and feed us bullshit."
Outfits like Dropsite are essential, but don't serve local markets, and Dropsite itself has itself been attacked by SLAPP lawfare.
Without a well-informed populace, democracy doesn't work.
Thank you, Dropsite.