Are Newspapers Yesterday?
By Bob Small
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, a Newspaper almost as old as the US (dob 1786) will print its last issue on May 3.
Pittsburgh will become the first city of its size without a daily newspaper. Block Communications cited losses of $350 million.
One backstory is the PPG’s refusal to honor a NLRB (National Labor Relation Board) ruling. According to Andrew Goldstein, President of the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh, “Instead of simply following the law, the owners chose to punish local journalists and the city of Pittsburgh.”
Concurrently,the Pittsburgh City Paper has also ceased operations.
Industry reaction has been sharp. Neil Brown, President of Poynter opined that “the situation in Pittsburgh has been a tumultuous hot mess for years, and the erratic nature of the ownership family in grappling with its labor issues has been well documented.” And Jeff Jarvis, Director (emeritus), Tow Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism, stated “Political ideology and a lack of strategic foresight and vision got in the way, and now another great city is one paper poorer.”
Tracing the recent history of closings we read that the U.S. has lost about 40 percent of its local newspapers . Not everyone is online but most of us can travel to our local Wawa for a Delco Times, along with a coffee and pastry of choice.
According to one survey, roughly 12 percent of the public lived in households without internet access in 2023. This limits not only how and where you get your news, but how you can check its reliability.
Other papers that have flown the way of the dodo are The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and The Tampa Tribune
Co-pilot and other AI sources cited other Pennsylvania papers that have closed in the last five years include Clinton County Record,The Easton Express-Times, the Middletown Press and Journal, the Titusville Herald and The Upper Dauphin Sentinel .
