![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/papers-3819540_640.jpg\")
\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\t\t\t\t \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0
\nLabor Landscape<\/p>\n
\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\t\t\t\t \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0
\nLabor Landscape<\/p>\n
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette\u2019s planned closure will impact 171 workers, according to a WARN notice filed\u00a0March 3 with the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The WARN Act, meaning Workers Adjustment and Retraining Notification, is designed to protect workers, families and communities, according to the commonwealth.\u00a0 Through the act, employers are mandated to give a 60-day notice\u00a0before\u00a0closing plants or conducting mass layoffs.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a shame that the Block family did not know how to run a business,\u2019\u2019 said Mickey Huff, a\u00a0distinguished director of the Park Center for Independent Media, Journalism at Ithaca College.\u00a0\u201cThey are just letting the Post-Gazette die. They lost the legal battle but won\u2019t admit they lost and now leave Pittsburgh in a media desert,\u2019\u2019 said Huff.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cNewspapers are not monetary play things,\u2019\u2019 Huff added.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Post-Gazette staff found out on Jan.7 that the newspaper would cease to exist May 3. The news came after a yearlong labor dispute and strike involving the newspaper\u2019s union, the Newspaper\u00a0Guild of Pittsburgh and the Block family.\u00a0 Workers \u2013 both those who had been part of a\u00a0yearslong\u00a0strike that ended last November and those who had crossed the picket line \u2013 learned of the impending closure through a prerecorded video at a virtual all-staff meeting.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
But union journalists from the soon-to-be-closed paper joined with labor leaders and community representatives earlier this\u00a0year\u00a0 to\u00a0launch an entity organizers say will be dedicated to imaging a future for the paper beyond its current ownership.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The organization, called Pittsburgh Alliance for People Empowered Reporting, or PAPER for short, seeks to look into possible models to continue reporting after the Block family, which owns the paper ceases publication.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know how to fight. We\u2019re not done fighting. We\u2019re going to try and build something that does not rely on the blocks, whatever form it takes,\u201d according to the union.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
However, there is media life after a paper dies.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cOnline media is the way of the world now,\u2019\u2019 said Elizabeth Regan, editor of\u00a0LymeLine, an independent, nonpartisan online news outlet serving 10,000 readers in the southeastern\u00a0Connecticut\u00a0towns of Lyme and old Lyme since 2003.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Supported by donations and\u00a0advertising ,\u00a0Regan said the online news vehicle provides trusted news, event listings and readers perspective unique to a place where the Connecticut River meets Long Island Sound.\u00a0 \u201cWe are committed to telling the stories of those who live, work and play here \u2013 and empowering them to tell their own stories,\u2019\u2019 said Regan.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The United States has lost nearly 3,500 newspapers\u00a0in the past decade, and more than 270,000 newspaper jobs over the past two decades, leaving 50 million people in news deserts, areas where people have limited or no access to reliable local news sources.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is why we are training tomorrow\u2019s journalists to have multi-platform media skills,\u2019\u2019 said Pamela\u00a0Walck, a journalism professor at Duquesne University.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cI do not think Pittsburgh is in a media desert because we have about 40 different publication centers,\u2019\u00a0Walck\u00a0said.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cRegardless of the medium, the journalist must be able to write and tell a compelling story,\u2019\u2019\u00a0Walck\u00a0said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
To that end,\u00a0Walck\u00a0said Duquesne University has joined with several other\u00a0schools\u00a0to host the Keystone News Summit April\u00a015-17 at Hershey Lodge in Hershey, Pa.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know\u00a0that\u00a0when we lose local papers, government corruption increases and civic participation decreases,\u2019\u2019 said\u00a0Walck.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cWe want to discuss ways to help independent news groups survive and find news way to deliver news,\u2019\u2019 she said.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ithaca\u2019s Huff also compliments\u00a0Walck\u2019s\u00a0notion by reporting that the loss of local newspapers leads to the abandonment of meaningful public-interest standards and the rise of platform monopolies with virtually no accountability.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n
\n ![\"Twitter](\"https:\/\/www.workerscompensation.com\/wp-content\/themes\/workerscompensation\/img\/twitter.svg\")
\n <\/a>
\n
\n ![\"Linkedin](\"https:\/\/www.workerscompensation.com\/wp-content\/themes\/workerscompensation\/img\/linkedin.svg\")
\n <\/a><\/p>\n