Nearly three months after Pittsburgh City Paper announced it was shutting down, the alt-weekly is rising from the dead, thanks to new ownership.
A new nonprofit, LocalMatters, has bought City Paper from Block Communications. The nonprofit was started by Chris Maury, founder of the government reporting site InformUp and a former Apple engineering manager.
City Paper plans to resume its coverage of community news, the arts, politics, and counterculture both online and in print. The paper will switch to a monthly print schedule, instead of weekly.
Though owned by a nonprofit, the paper will remain for-profit. The print edition and website will still be free to readers, though it’s asking for more community support through a membership program.
Ali Trachta, who served as editor-in-chief, then executive editor during the last three years, will continue in that role. Nearly all the editorial staff will also return.
LocalMatters is backed by the Philadelphia-based Lenfest Institute, a nonprofit that aims to make local news sustainable and which owns the Philadelphia Inquirer. LocalMatters is promising to drive digital innovation at the 34-year-old City Paper, and create a curated experience for online readers.
Andrew Conte, head of Point Park University’s Center for Media Innovation, said media leaders working in collaboration instead of competition shows a “paradigm shift” for the region.
“A lot of people have been looking at Pittsburgh saying, ‘oh, poor Pittsburgh.’ But in this case…Pittsburgh did something really cool and different. That sets a new standard for the rest of the country,” Conte said.
Conte said both InformUp and City Paper had offices at the Pittsburgh Downtown Media Hub. That connection allowed the partners to move quickly when word came that Block Communications was ending City Paper’s publication.
Alt-weeklies across the country have faced similar challenges to daily newspapers and other media, especially the loss of print advertising thanks to the Internet. But Columbia Journalism Review has reported that, while several weeklies have closed, many others have evolved.
The Village Voice in New York shut down in 2018, only to be revived as an online and quarterly print edition in 2021 under a new owner. Seven Days in Vermont started a “super reader” donation program, Isthmus in Wisconsin converted to a nonprofit, and other papers bring in money through community events.
Conte said media historically has been controlled by wealthy companies, but City Paper’s renewal shows that media “belongs to all of us.”
“If there are enough of us who say, ‘we appreciate Pittsburgh City Paper and the unique voice it has’ and we put our money behind it, and we put our clicks behind it and our attention behind it, we can all be part of saving this publication,” Conte said. “It’s not like somebody saved it for us. It’s like we’re saving it for ourselves. And that’s the difference of this time we live in now.”
An interview with three former City Paper journalists about its 34-year run.