PITTSBURGH – On Wednesday, the owners of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette revealed their decision to close the newspaper within a few months, attributing the move to financial difficulties.

Block Communications Inc. stated that the publication will end on May 3. Currently, the paper is issued on Thursdays and Sundays, with a reported average paid circulation of 83,000, according to its website.

In November, several union members resumed their roles at the Post-Gazette following a strike that lasted three years.

Over five years ago, the newspaper announced it had hit a bargaining deadlock with the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh, leading to the imposition of employment terms without agreement. Subsequently, the publication was criticized for negotiating in bad faith, making insincere offers, and prematurely declaring an impasse.

The closure announcement by Block coincided with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to reject PG Publishing Co. Inc.’s emergency appeal. This appeal sought to overturn a National Labor Relations Board order requiring the company to maintain health care coverage as per an expired union contract.

Andrew Goldstein, president of the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh, said the paper’s journalists have a long history of award-winning work.

“Instead of simply following the law, the owners chose to punish local journalists and the city of Pittsburgh,” Goldstein said. The union said employees were notified in a video on Zoom in which company officials did not speak live.

The Post-Gazette said Block Communications has lost hundreds of millions of dollars over two decades in operating the paper, and the company said it deemed “continued cash losses at this scale no longer sustainable.”

The Block family said in a statement it was “proud of the service the Post-Gazette has provided to Pittsburgh for nearly a century.”

A phone message seeking comment was left Wednesday at Block Communications headquarters in Toledo, Ohio.

The paper traces its roots to 1786, when the Pittsburgh Gazette began as a four-page weekly, and became a leading advocate for the abolition of slavery in the 19th century. It went through a series of mastheads and owners before 1927, when Paul Block obtained the paper and named it the Post-Gazette.