Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, also known simply as the PG, is the largest newspaper serving metropolitan Pittsburgh in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. Descended from the Pittsburgh Gazette, established in 1786 as the first newspaper published west of the Allegheny Mountains, the paper formed under its present title in 1927 from the consolidation of the Pittsburgh Gazette Times and The Pittsburgh Post.
The Post-Gazette ended daily print publication in 2018 and has cut down to two print editions per week, going online-only the rest of the week.
In the 2010s, the editorial tone of the paper shifted from liberal to conservative, particularly after the editorial pages of the paper were consolidated in 2018 with The Blade of Toledo, Ohio. After the consolidation, Keith Burris, the pro-Trump editorial page editor of The Blade, directed the editorial pages of both papers.
Copies are sold for $4 daily and $6 Sundays/Thanksgiving Day in-state. This includes Allegheny and adjacent counties. Prices are higher outside the state.
PG staff was on strike from October 2022 to November 2025. On January 7, 2026, Block Communications announced that the PG will publish its final edition and cease operations on May 3.
History
''Gazette''
The Post-Gazette began its history as a four-page weekly called The Pittsburgh Gazette, first published on July 29, 1786, with the encouragement of Hugh Henry Brackenridge. It was the first newspaper published west of the Allegheny Mountains. Published by Joseph Hall and John Scull, the paper covered the start of the nation. As one of its first major articles, the Gazette published the newly adopted Constitution of the United States.In 1820, under publishers Eichbaum and Johnston and editor Morgan Neville, the name changed to Pittsburgh Gazette and Manufacturing and Mercantile Advertiser. David MacLean bought the paper in 1822, and later reverted to the former title.
Under editor Neville B. Craig, whose service lasted from 1829 to 1841, the Gazette championed the Anti-Masonic movement. Craig turned the Gazette into the city's first daily paper, issued every afternoon except Sunday starting on July 30, 1833.
In 1844, shortly after absorbing the Advocate, the Gazette switched its daily issue time to morning. Its editorial stance at the time was conservative and strongly favoring the Whig Party. By the 1850s the Gazette was credited with helping to organize a local chapter of the new Republican Party, and with contributing to the election of Abraham Lincoln.
The paper was one of the first to suggest tensions between North and South would erupt in war.
After consolidating with the Commercial in 1877, the paper was again renamed and was then known as the Commercial Gazette.
In 1900, George T. Oliver acquired the paper, merging it six years later with The Pittsburg Times to form The Gazette Times.
''Post''
The Pittsburgh Post first appeared on September 10, 1842, as the Daily Morning Post. It had its origin in three pro-Democratic weeklies, the Mercury, Allegheny Democrat, and American Manufacturer, which came together through a pair of mergers in the early 1840s. The three papers had for years engaged in bitter editorial battles with the Gazette.Like its predecessors, the Post advocated the policies of the Democratic Party. Its political opposition to the Whig and later Republican Gazette was so enduring that an eventual combination of the two rivals would have seemed unlikely.
Block-Hearst deal
The 1920s were a time of consolidation in the Pittsburgh newspaper market. In 1923, local publishers banded together to acquire and kill off the Dispatch and Leader. Four years later, William Randolph Hearst negotiated with the Olivers to purchase the morning Gazette Times and its evening sister, the Chronicle Telegraph, while Paul Block arranged to buy out the owner of the morning Post and evening Sun. After swapping the Sun in return for Hearst's Gazette Times, Block had both morning papers, which he combined to form the Post-Gazette. Hearst united the evening papers, creating the Sun-Telegraph. Both new papers debuted on August 2, 1927.Joint operating agreement
In 1960, Pittsburgh had three daily papers: the Post-Gazette in the morning, and the Pittsburgh Press and the Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph in the evening and on Sunday. The Post-Gazette bought the Sun-Telegraph and moved into the Sun-Telegraph's Grant Street offices.The Post-Gazette tried to publish a Sunday paper to compete with the Sunday Press but it was not profitable; rising costs in general were challenging the company's bottom line. In November 1961, the Post-Gazette entered into an agreement with the Pittsburgh Press Company to combine their production and advertising sales operations. The Post-Gazette owned and operated its own news and editorial departments, but production and distribution of the paper was handled by the larger Press office. This agreement stayed in place for over 30 years.
The agreement gave the Post-Gazette a new home in the Press building, a comfortable upgrade from the hated "Sun-Telly barn". Constructed for the Press in 1927 and expanded with a curtain wall in 1962, the building served as the Post-Gazette headquarters until 2015.
Strike, consolidation, new competition
On May 17, 1992, a strike by workers for the Press shut down publication of the Press; the joint operating agreement meant that the Post-Gazette also ceased to publish. During the strike, the Scripps Howard company sold the Press to the Block family, owners of the Post-Gazette. The Blocks did not resume printing the Press, and when the labor issue was resolved and publishing resumed, the Post-Gazette became the city's major paper, under the full masthead name Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Sun-Telegraph/The Pittsburgh Press. The Block ownership did not take this opportunity to address labor costs, which had led to sale of the Press. This would come back to haunt them and lead to financial problems.During the strike, publisher Richard Mellon Scaife expanded his paper, the Greensburg Tribune-Review, based in the county seat of adjoining Westmoreland County, where it had published for years. While maintaining the original paper in its facilities in Greensburg, he expanded it with a new Pittsburgh edition to serve the city and its suburbs. Scaife named this paper the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Scaife has invested significant amounts of capital into upgraded facilities, separate offices and newsroom on Pittsburgh's North Side and a state of the art production facility in Marshall Township north of Pittsburgh in Allegheny County. Relations between the Post-Gazette and Tribune-Review, during its existence as a local print publication, were often competitive and frequently hostile, given Scaife's longstanding distaste for what he considered the Blocks' liberalism.
On 14 November 2011 the Post-Gazette revived the Pittsburgh Press as an afternoon online newspaper. On 12 February 2014, the paper purchased a new distribution facility in suburban Findlay Township, Pennsylvania. In 2015 the paper moved into a new, state-of-the-art office building on the North Shore on a portion of the former site of Three Rivers Stadium, ending 53 years in the former Press building and more than two centuries in Downtown. Block Communications sold the downtown Post-Gazette building in 2019 to DiCicco Development, Inc., a developer headquartered in Moon Township, for $13.25 million. As of late 2022, DiCicco Development was still deciding what type of use might work best on the property.
2020s strike
On October 6, 2022, the advertising, distribution and production workers at the Post-Gazette went on strike. On October 18, the newsroom workers joined the strike. The National Labor Relations Board also pursued a case against the paper charging unfair practices. As of March 2023, the strike had not been settled and the NLRB case was pending before an administrative law judge. As of October 2023, the unions were still on strike against the Post-Gazette. In April 2024, the NLRB announced it was authorizing a request from the newspaper's unions to seek a temporary injunction against the Post-Gazette ownership for violating workers' labor rights. The Post-Gazette striking workers have published an online strike paper, Pittsburgh Union Progress.In November 2025, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the earlier finding of an administrative law judge that PG Publishing, the owners of the Post-Gazette, had violated federal labor law by negotiating in bad faith with the paper's union, as well as upholding the remedy that affected workers be compensated for any loss in earnings and benefits, plus interest, that accrued as a result of PG Publishing's actions. The strike ended on November 24, 2025 as the striking workers returned to work after striking for three years The Union's striking paper also closed down on November 23, just before workers returned.
Partnerships and sponsorships
The newspaper sponsored a 23,000 seat outdoor amphitheater in Burgettstown, Pennsylvania, the "Post-Gazette Pavilion", although it is still often referred to as "Star Lake", based on the original name, "Star Lake Amphitheater", and later "Coca-Cola Star Lake Amphitheater" under the former sponsor. They gave up naming rights in 2010. First Niagara Bank, which had entered the Pittsburgh market the year before after acquiring National City branches from Pittsburgh-based PNC Financial Services, took over the naming rights to the facility and is now known as the KeyBank Pavilion.The newspaper once had ventures in television. In 1957, the Post-Gazette partnered with the H. Kenneth Brennen family, local radio owners, to launch WIIC-TV as the area's first full-time NBC affiliate. The Post-Gazette and the Brennens sold off the station to current owner Cox Enterprises in 1964. Although the Post-Gazette and WPXI have on occasion had some news partnerships, the Post-Gazette's primary news partner is now the local CBS owned-and-operated station KDKA-TV.
In 2019, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette was a founding member of Spotlight PA, an investigative reporting partnership focused on Pennsylvania.