The owners of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette announced Wednesday that the newspaper will shut down operations on May 3.
“In the past two decades, Block Communications has lost more than $350 million while operating the Post-Gazette. Despite these efforts, the challenges facing local journalism make it impossible to continue sustaining losses of this magnitude,” the newspaper said in a statement.
The announcement came just hours after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to overturn a November ruling ordering the company to resume contract negotiations with its union following a three-year strike. The ruling requires the Block family, owners of the paper, and the union to operate under the terms of a 2014 labor contract—which had expired and eventually led to the strike—until a new agreement is reached.
The decision also follows the closure of the Pittsburgh City Paper last week, ending its 34-year run. The City Paper is also owned by Block Communications.
The Block family has owned the Post-Gazette since 1927, when Paul Block struck a deal with William Randolph Hearst that resulted in the merger of the Pittsburgh Post and the Gazette Times into a single morning paper, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
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