Is the news actually dying?

We constantly hear about the death of journalism and the defunct print model. 

The former is a total scam: we will always care about the world around us, and it’s the journalists’ job to tell us those stories. We are nosy creatures, after all. The latter? A forceful truth that’s been suffocating local newspapers like an octopus engorging fish on the ocean floor.

It has most recently been observed at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The 240-year-old publication will close on May 3. On Jan. 7, the paper’s owners, Block Communications, sent a pre-recorded Zoom call — lasting less than three minutes — to the paper’s staff detailing the closure. Executives said the decision encompassed $350 million lost in funding over the past two decades, employee strikes and the dour fall of print journalism.

When I heard of the closure, my intern experience flashed before my eyes. I thought of yellow bridges, Picklesburgh and pierogies. I also envisioned more serious times, like the assassination attempt on President Trump and listening to wisdom from the journalists in the newsroom who always warned me of the media’s uncertainty. I knew I wasn’t the only one — certainly not one of a few people — who cared about the world around me. But I knew deep in my heart that paper-first outlets are frail.

The closing reminds us what is at stake if and when news ceases to exist. News is a public service, a watchdog meant to keep power in check and share stories with the aim of articulating our shared reality. 

Right now, that public service is under attack, and not just Pittsburgh is suffering. Over 3,200 papers have closed in the U.S. since 2005, according to the most recent data from Northwestern University’s Medill School. There are just over 5,400 active papers throughout the nation. Out of the U.S.’s over 3,000 counties, 55% have either one newspaper or none at all.

Newspapers close for many reasons, but it seems that simply user preference is one of the largest reasons why, if not the largest. The print model has crumbled before our screen-glued eyes for years. Social media slop has replaced news; Alex Cooper for Anderson Cooper; influencer babble has replaced journalists. It’s difficult to break people away from free and entertaining escapism. And it’s a very possible reality that many PG readers will digest more social media, sustaining the vacuum seal seizing disinformation. 

I’m critical because newspapers abide by something that the veil of social media can never offer: a platform without curation, a double-edged sword of sorts. Scanning the news, either online or in print, forces you to engage with all sides in our shared reality. Whether you like it or not, you read of Zohran Mamdani’s unlikely victory. You read of Nicolás Maduro’s swift capture. You read of Antarctica shredding away its largest sheet of ice. The list goes on, updating in a momentary refresh.

Facing the news is tougher than we like to admit. We like to turn away from the grim reality that we share. It’s easier to completely ignore the news, rather than to read — and understand — the other and the world. When we do that, though, it further separates us from reality. And at the end of it, only the most comfortable, powerful people win.

The Post-Gazette’s owners spent more money fighting court battles with Pittsburgh’s union than if it were to impose across-the-board wage increases “several times over,” according to the local NewsGuild. 

Unionized workers of the PG struck against contract disagreements with the paper’s publisher for three years starting in 2020. The strike ended in November when the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in the union’s favor. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito ordered a pause on the court’s decision last December, but it was later retracted.