The owners of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette announced Wednesday that they plan to shut down the storied newspaper this spring.
Block Communications, the Toledo, Ohio-based media company, said in a statement that over the previous 20 years it had lost $350 million running the paper, which traces its roots back to 1786.
“Despite those efforts, the realities facing local journalism make continued cash losses at this scale no longer sustainable,” it said.
The final edition of the paper will be published May 3.
The company’s decision came the same day it suffered a legal setback at the U.S. Supreme Court in its yearslong battle with its staff union, the NewsGuild-CWA. The high court turned down the company’s request to block a lower court order that would force it to reinstate a health care plan for employees specified in their union contract.
