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The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which has roots going back to 1786, is going out of business, the paper’s owners, Block Communications, announced on Jan. 7. The closure follows the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to deny Block’s bid to stay a U.S. 3rd Circuit Court order that the Post-Gazette reinstate a contractual healthcare plan it had agreed to before illegally tearing it up in 2020. The last edition of the publication will be on May 3. The Post-Gazette ended daily print publication in 2018, with just two print editions per week (Sunday and Thursday), and has been online-only the rest of the week. In a pre-recorded, 2½-minute Zoom video that informed Post-Gazette staffers of the closing, Block Communications president Jodi Miehls said that nonunion members who stay on until publication stops will have severance packages available, and that the company will work with union representatives to determine unionized employee packages. Last week, Block shuttered Pittsburgh City Paper, an alternative weekly. “Over the past 20 years, Block Communications has lost more than $350 million in cash operating the Post-Gazette,” a state from the Post-Gazette said. “The realities facing local journalism make continued cash losses at this scale no longer sustainable.”
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| Will Welch |
GQ editor Will Welch, who has led American GQ since 2018 and was named global editorial director two years later, is stepping down to take on a new Paris-based role with the musician Pharrell, who is also men’s creative director at Louis Vuitton. Welch has also led Condé Nast’s online music publication Pitchfork. He wrote on his Instagram page that his last day in his current job will be Feb. 15. His departure follows the departure of Anna Wintour from the editor spot at American Vogue and Radhika Jones from the top of the masthead at Vanity Fair in 2025. Condé Nast also folded its Teen Vogue unit into Vogue’s website last year. In a November interview with the New York Times, Welch talked about digital’s rising power and the decline of print, noting that for younger readers, GQ was not seen as a print magazine but as a YouTube channel.
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Semafor says it has raised $30 million on a $330 million valuation, following its first profitable year. The digital media company generated $2 million in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization on revenue of $40 million in 2025. It plans to use the money as part of a global expansion. While existing backers such as KKR co-founder Henry Kravis, Carlyle Group co-founder David Rubenstein and Gallup account for more than half of the funding, the list of new backers includes PSP, the investment firm founded by Penny Pritzker; Belgian entrepreneur Thomas Leysen and Antenna Group. With a current journalist headcount of 55 to 60, Semafor anticipates adding as many as 20 more in the next few years to beef up coverage of U.S. politics, the finance industry and the tech sector. Though the company currently has no paywall in place, CEO Justin Smith told Reuters that it plans to explore subscription opportunities.
WNET, the nation’s largest public media company, names Edward O’Keefe its next president and CEO, effective September 21. O’Keefe succeeds Neal Shapiro, who becomes president emeritus and will retire at the end of the year... The Stealth Bot Prohibition Act, which would empower news publishers and other content providers to defend themselves by mandating transparency for all bots crawling their sites, in introduced in the House by Rep. Laurel Lee (R-FL) and Rep. Valerie Foushee (D-NC)... Google gets socked by European Union regulators with a $1 billion fine for using the platform’s dominance as a search engine to illegally undercut competition.
Boston Globe Media acquires InstaTrac, a company that provides subscription-based services aimed at making government information easier to find, track, and understand... AARP names former New Republic CEO and publisher Michael Caruso as its SVP and chief content officer, unifying the organization's portfolio of media, live events and digital platforms... The Fund for American Studies, an educational nonprofit, awards its inaugural Journalism Excellence Fellowships.
Trump Media and Technology Group Corp. has replaced CEO and former California Congressman Devin Nunes with Kevin McGurn, a seasoned media sales executive.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is being bought by the Venetoulis Institute for Local Journalism, a nonprofit that is the parent organization of the Baltimore Banner... The British Broadcasting Corporation is axing approximately 2,000 jobs, about 10 percent of its work force... Snap, the company behind Snapchat, is also succumbing to layoff fever, announcing plans to lay off 16 percent of its employees, about 1,000 people.
CBS News Radio will go off the air on May 22, part of the axe-swinging managerial plan put into play by CBS editor-in-chief Bari Weiss... The Economist, which was first published in 1843, is changing hands. Canadian billionaire Stephen Smith has agreed to acquire a 26.9 percent stake in the publication from Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild, her family and family foundation... Nexstar Media Group says it has closed its acquisition of TEGNA, the broadcast, digital media and marketing services company that was formed in 2015, when the Gannett Company split into two publicly traded companies.
