One of America's oldest newspapers is about to print its last edition. Block Communications Inc. said Wednesday that the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette will publish its last edition on May 3, the New York Times reports, closing the books on a paper whose roots stretch back to 1786. The Toledo-based, family-owned company said it has lost more than $350 million over the past two decades keeping the paper going and can't keep absorbing that level of red ink. "People have been thinking about what it would mean to lose the Post-Gazette for a long time," said Andrew Conte, of the Center for Media Innovation at Point Park University, per WTAE. "But when it actually happened today, it felt like a gut punch."
The US Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected the company's emergency appeal to block a lower-court order requiring the paper to abide by a labor agreement with its union, the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh. Justice Samuel Alito, who is assigned emergency cases from Pennsylvania, had temporarily halted the order until the high court issued its ruling. "Instead of simply following the law, the owners chose to punish local journalists and the city of Pittsburgh," said Andrew Goldstein, president of the union, per the Hill. "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."
The company cited the court rulings that would force the paper to operate under its 2014 labor contract, which it described as locking in "outdated and inflexible operational practices," as well as financial pressures facing local journalism outlets generally, per the Times. Block closed the Pittsburgh City Paper last week. The shutdown will not affect the Toledo Blade, which is also owned by the company. "This is a seismic change for the entire region," said Conte. "We often talk about the local news crisis as a problem of the media, but really, it's a crisis for all of us."
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