Guild Journalists, Pittsburgh Community, Local Labor Comes Together to Launch PAPER

Pittsburgh Alliance for People-Empowered Reporting Reveals Vision for Alternative to Block-Owned Post-Gazette as May 3 PG Closure Looms 

PITTSBURGH — A mere three weeks after the Post-Gazette (PG) announced its impending closure, members of the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh, community organizers, neighbors, and labor leaders unveiled their initiative to research and pursue a daily news alternative to the Block-owned Post-Gazette.

“We believe there’s a way to tap into that deep well of strength and resilience, to recognize it in our communities, to reach out and engage everyday people in solving looming problems, like this city’s loss of a major source of news and information,” said Steve Mellon, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette multimedia journalist. “That’s the spirit in which PAPER was born.”

PG journalists came together with community supporters in the days following the Post-Gazette telling workers, via a prerecorded video, that the company would be closing in May. The PG’s announcement came hours after a Supreme Court decision rejecting the company’s attempt to get out of providing workers with the contractually bargained health care Guild members won in a three-plus-year strike. Members of the Newspaper Guild had secured all their strike demands, including restoration of their lawlessly discarded contract, in addition to make-whole payments owed to workers for costs the company illegally passed onto them.

Mellon was joined on stage by about two dozen fellow union members and Pittsburghers who themselves voiced their support for daily local journalism that informs and connects working-class communities.

“We are here because we deserve a free and fair media. We are here because Pittsburgh is a union town. We are here because for far too long our media has not represented the voices of the people we know — the workers, the community members, the people who really drive this community and this country,” said Tanisha Long, community organizer with the Abolitionist Law Center. “We are here because no one family should be able to take away access to news sources from a whole entire city. We are here because this community came together, because these journalists came together, because the strikers fought for three years to do what was not only fair, but what was right and ethical. Unfortunately we are here because the Block family decided to take that away from them.”

Long and other supporters went on to discuss broader crises in the industry and lay out their vision for how Pittsburgh can rise above misinformation in the wake of the Block family’s closing of the PG.

“What the owners of the PG intend to do with this is not just disrespect the union workers who fought so hard to negotiate those terms, who fought so hard to get the day that they’ve earned,” said Ross Tedder, community organizer with the Alliance for Police Accountability. “It is to make us all less connected and less apt at calling out the atrocities that we see all around us today.”

Tedder, a son of the Mon Valley, said in his daily work he sees how people without access to news are isolated from their neighbors and communities around them.

It’s why he and others have dived into organizing with PAPER. In the past three weeks, PAPER has researched cooperative and nonprofit business models that members believe may help better serve the communities in which journalists and supporters alike live.

Mellon noted that he and others had been encouraged by discussions they’ve had with people who organized or reorganized outlets in similar situations in different cities. He also said PAPER would love to see an independent PG survive but flagged that he and his coworkers do not control who owns his current employer.

In a soft launch over the previous couple days, PG workers and supporters were encouraged by both the donations PAPER received as well as messages sent in by some donors.

PG web editor and Secretary of the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh Natalie Duleba read off several during the press conference. Most focused on the relationship between dedicated local journalism, democracy, and fairness.

“Worker-owned reporting is the only sustainable future of community-oriented news where the reader's education and understanding is the goal — not an opportunity for political manipulation nor a product to be sold to advertisers,” Deluba said, reading one of the supporter messages.

PAPER, which is not a publication itself, is a natural continuation of the causes strikers fought for across several years in the eyes of United Steelworkers Vice President Emil Ramirez.

“Workers are not a side story. In Pittsburgh and around the world, workers are the story. PAPER understands that,” Ramirez said. “Workers built this region; we keep it running. We raise families here. We fight to stay afloat, we fight for dignity, we fight for fairness. And that is why we need a worker-centered news outlet that really covers your life, not just press releases, shows up in communities that are too often ignored, treats working people with respect, connects the dots between wages, health care, housing, education, and safety. That’s what PAPER is stepping up to do, and we are proud to be here for it.”

Duleba later explained that money being raised by PAPER will go toward business planning, hiring expertise, legal fees, renting space for future events where more community members can weigh in, and — if more successful — scaling up an actual newsgathering operation.

When asked, Duleba emphasized that she was excited about her job at the PG and looking forward to settling into a more typical work schedule before the company’s abrupt closure announcement.

“There was being scared, but also a lot of anger, but then as we came together with these people I built so much trust with over the past three years, it was like, ‘No, we know how to fight; we’re not done fighting. We’re gonna try to build something that doesn’t rely on the Blocks, whatever form that takes,’” she said. “Because the Blocks have proved they’re not good stewards for local journalism, for Pittsburgh journalism, for Pittsburgh itself, and we can do better.

“So being able to work on PAPER has given me a lot of hope and purpose as I also continue to work full-time.”

Statement provided by U.S. Rep. Summer Lee: “Local journalism is essential to a healthy democracy, and in a moment when too many institutions are failing working people, it matters who controls our stories and who is accountable to our communities. Pittsburgh deserves journalism that belongs to the people who live and work here, not billionaire owners who walk away when workers stand up for themselves. What union journalists and community members are building through PAPER shows the power of working people coming together to protect our jobs, our voices, and our right to tell our own stories. This is about strengthening democracy, rebuilding trust, and making sure no neighborhood is left in the dark about decisions that shape our lives. After years of retaliation and abandonment by Block Communications, workers and neighbors are choosing a future rooted in dignity, fairness, and accountability to the people of this city.”

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About PAPER: Our goal is to research and organize alternatives to the Block-owned Post-Gazette to forge a publication that engages more effectively and sustainably as a source of communication and connection, reflecting the concerns of working-class people.

OurPaperNow.org | pghguild@gmail.com

About CWA: The Communications Workers of America represents working people in telecommunications, customer service, media, airlines, health care, public service and education, manufacturing, tech, and other fields.

cwa-union.org @cwaunion