Pittsburgh Post-Gazette To Cut Back On Print

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is eliminating two days of print, reports KDKA-TV2.

Starting Sept. 30, the Post-Gazette will not print on Mondays and Wednesdays, the paper said in a statement.

The statement said the paper, which is owned by Block Communications, is taking its next step in its digital transformation by eliminating two additional days of print.

In August 2018, the Post-Gazette cut Tuesdays and Saturdays.

Subscribers will get a print edition on Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays.

With the Post-Gazette facing huge losses and strained labor talks with all of its unions, the shift to digital will ultimately lead to the loss of jobs.

“We were saddened when we went down to two days,” President of the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh Michael Fuoco said. “But we learned to live with it. But to cut another two days and only publish three days a week, we are crestfallen by this.”

Fuoco is not only worried about jobs. He’s worried about readers, too.

“We have a community of older people who aren’t digitally-savvy,” Fuoco said. “We won’t be reaching those people, and we feel our mission is to reach as many people as we can.”

The Post-Gazette declined to be interviewed for this story, but in a written statement said digital is the future and promised to maintain the quality of the Post-Gazette.

The family-owned Pittsburgh newspaper made national headlines earlier this year when its publisher and editor-in-chief John Robinson Block subjected newsroom staff members to a tirade and threatened employees’ jobs as his young daughter sobbed and begged him to stop, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer citing Post-Gazette staffers who were present.

Triggering the outburst was a union sign in the newsroom that said in big letters “Shame on the Blocks!” In a 45-second video clip of Saturday’s tirade provided to the Pittsburgh publication The Incline, Block is seen standing before the poster and heard shouting “Get rid of it!” before striking the poster with his hands twice.

Allan Block, John Block’s brother and chairman of Block Communications that owns the newspaper, issued a statement after the incident saying the company regretted “if anyone present may have misconstrued what occurred as anything other than an indication of strong concern and support for the legacy and future of the Post-Gazette.”