The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which had been set to shut down in May, will keep publishing after all. A nonprofit journalism organization has stepped up to acquire the newspaper, which has survived for more than two centuries.
The Venetoulis Institute for Local Journalism, which runs The Baltimore Banner and is financed by the hotel magnate Stewart W. Bainum Jr., said on Tuesday that it had reached an agreement with the newspaper’s current owner, Block Communications, to buy the assets of The Post-Gazette and run it as a nonprofit. The transaction is expected to take effect on May 4, ensuring there is no gap in publishing.
The deal is a rare spot of good news for the media industry, which has endured waves of metropolitan and local newspaper closures and widening local news deserts around the country for the past two decades. A 2025 report by Northwestern University found that more than 130 papers had shut in the preceding year alone.
The Post-Gazette is one of the oldest newspapers in the United States, tracing its history back to The Pittsburgh Gazette, which was founded in 1786. It has been owned by Block Communications since 1927, and has won multiple Pulitzer Prizes. Its closure would have made Pittsburgh one of the largest metropolitan areas without a major newspaper.
A number of parties were interested in buying The Post-Gazette after its closure was announced, said Allan Block, chief executive of Block Communications, in an interview. He said that the Venetoulis Institute was not the highest bidder, but that the company’s board decided it would be the best steward for the newspaper. Mr. Block declined to disclose the sale amount.
In an interview, Mr. Bainum said, “The Block family should be recognized for selling this at a huge discount for the price they could have received.” He added, “One, they care about the metro area and the Pittsburgh community, and, two, they trust us to deliver on our promises.”
Mr. Bainum started the Venetoulis Institute as the parent organization for The Baltimore Banner, a nonprofit newsroom he helped to set up in 2022 to address what he saw as a dearth of local news in Maryland. He contributed $50 million of his own money to fund the project over five years.
He said he and his wife, Sandy, were now committing an additional $30 million over the next five years to help expand The Banner and turn around The Post-Gazette.
“We want to provide high-quality independent journalism to communities that need it the most, and in doing that build a sustainable business model for local news at scale that can be replicated,” Mr. Bainum said.
Block Communications said in January that it had spent more than $350 million over two decades on the publication, which continued to lose money. The publication had been mired in an ongoing labor dispute: A group of unionized newsroom workers were on strike for more than three years after the company cut off health insurance for employees.
The company had cited recent court decisions that would have required the newspaper to operate under an old labor contract as a reason for the closure of the paper.
Mr. Block said that Block Communications “gave it a good try” with The Post-Gazette, but that it had become “a drag” on the company. Block Communications, a privately held company, also owns broadcasting and cable businesses and a newspaper in Toledo, Ohio.
A person close to the transaction said another bidder for The Post-Gazette was Alden Global Capital, an investment firm that has bought dozens of newspapers around the country. An Alden representative did not reply to a request for comment.
Bob Cohn, the president and chief executive of the Venetoulis Institute, said that The Post-Gazette would operate as a nonprofit newsroom and that it planned to rehire “a large number” of the current employees back to the newsroom. He added that the paper would run advertising and sponsorships locally in Pittsburgh, while combining some back-office operations into the institute.
He said the Venetoulis Institute had started considering buying The Post-Gazette only after reading news reports about its coming closure.
“Our first thought was there’s a historic paper serving a lot of readers in Western Pennsylvania and those folks will no longer be getting robust local news coverage,” he said. “We immediately saw an opportunity there to bring our model to another region.”
After a meeting with Block Communications in February, Mr. Cohn said, he and Mr. Bainum were convinced that despite its financial difficulties, The Post-Gazette could be successfully operated like The Baltimore Banner. The nonprofit newsroom relies on a combination of subscription and advertising revenue as well as philanthropy.
The Banner now has 79,000 paid subscribers, he said, and a newsroom of about 100 people. It has expanded to have reporters in seven counties in Maryland. Last year, The Banner won a Pulitzer Prize for its reporting on Baltimore’s opioid crisis, which was done in partnership with The New York Times.
Katie Robertson covers the media industry for The Times. Email: [email protected]
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