Baltimore Banner’s nonprofit publisher buys the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, a 240-year-old newspaper set to close after a protracted battle between its parent company and the paper’s union, was sold Tuesday to a nonprofit that promises to keep the paper running.

The Venetoulis Institute for Local Journalism, publisher of the upstart news website Baltimore Banner and founded by hotel magnate Stewart W. Bainum Jr., announced that it will buy the Post-Gazette from current owner Block Communications, which has operated the paper since 1927.

“Local journalism is essential to a strong community, but across the country the business model has been under severe strain,” Bainum said in a statement. “We believe there is a path forward — one that combines great journalism with a diversified business model built on scale and exceptional talent.”

Block announced in January that it would shut down the Post-Gazette, hours after the U.S. Supreme Court denied its request to stay a federal appeals court’s November order that the newspaper adhere to the terms of a years-old labor agreement with its union. That deal guaranteed employee benefits such as health care, short-term disability and paid time off. After the appeals court ruling, 26 Post-Gazette journalists ended a three-year strike and returned to work.

When the Post-Gazette’s closure was announced, it was in the process of moving offices, city hall reporter Hallie Lauer said, so the newspaper had to cancel its lease on the building where it planned to move. Since then, staff have been working out of the warehouse that stores their archives. “People have been calling it our Costco,” Lauer said.

There had been rumblings in the newsroom that the newspaper would be able to find a buyer, she said, but news staff were not notified about the sale until Tuesday morning when it was announced publicly. “People were smiling and shaking their heads. It felt like a collective sigh of relief,” Lauer said.

“It was this heartwarming moment for the greater Pittsburgh community, too,” Lauer said.

The Venetoulis Institute will take over the Post-Gazette on May 4 — one day after the paper was planning to cease publication. Following the sale, Block Communications will continue to run the Toledo Blade and its other media assets.

“The Block family has worked to find the best possible source for responsible local journalism for the Pittsburgh region, and we believe we have succeeded,” said Karen Johnese, chairperson of Block Communications. “We are excited to hand our treasured paper over to such a committed and creative organization. We trust in their integrity and care for our community.”

Jon Schleuss, president of the national NewsGuild-CWA union, said in a statement that he is “hopeful” for the new ownership. “There are still a lot of details to iron out, including the several million dollars the Blocks owe journalists for violating federal law,” he said. “We are dedicated to working with ownership that follows the law, respects workers’ union rights and invests in a newsroom delivering high-quality local news. Pittsburgh has made it clear it will accept nothing less.”

The Baltimore Banner, which launched in 2022 and won a Pulitzer Prize for local reporting last year, has been in expansion mode, adding coverage of Montgomery County and Prince George’s counties, as well as D.C. sports teams.

In an interview, Bob Cohn, president and CEO of the Venetoulis Institute, declined to reveal the purchase price but said that it is acquiring the paper’s assets — including its brand, intellectual property and customers — without assuming its existing contracts and liabilities.

Cohn said the nonprofit contacted Block Communications after learning via news reports that the Post-Gazette was shutting down. The organization has long aimed to replicate the success of the Baltimore Banner in other cities, he said, noting that it has just shy of 80,000 paying subscribers.

Pittsburgh was already on Cohn’s radar. A consultant he hired last summer ranked it the top market for expansion among roughly 40 regions east of the Mississippi, he said. “There’s a tradition of people in the area reading news, caring about news, being civically engaged, a demonstrated willingness on the part of that audience to pay for news,” Cohn said, “and a business environment and a philanthropic environment that might be supportive of someone like us coming in.”

Jerry Zremski, the director of the Local News Network at the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism, called the sale an exciting development.

“The Banner formula seems to be working in Baltimore, so I see no reason why it wouldn’t work in Pittsburgh,” he said. The subscriber and donor pool in Pittsburgh could be well-suited for the nonprofit news organization, he said. “I think the Venetoulis Institute will find plenty of financial support locally that will help this effort.”

The Post-Gazette is the only news outlet in western Pennsylvania with a reporter in Washington to monitor the state’s congressional delegation, said Jonathan D. Salant, a longtime columnist for the newspaper, who called the sale a “big victory for local journalism.”

“At a time when communities are losing their local news outlets, this ensures that the dominant one in Pittsburgh will continue to publish,” Salant said. “And since the Pirates and Orioles are in different leagues, any friction should be kept to a minimum.”

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