By Dan Kennedy
When the owners of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette announced earlier this year that the paper would shut down in May, it was widely noted that such a move would leave Pittsburgh as the largest city in the country without a daily newspaper. That said, it seemed unlikely. The very fact that the Block family decided to keep operating the paper until May all but guaranteed that some new ownership possibilities would emerge.
And today, that’s exactly what happened. The Venetoulis Institute for Local Journalism, which owns the nonprofit Baltimore Banner, will buy the Post-Gazette and operate the paper as a nonprofit. If I’m not mistaken, that will make the Post-Gazette the second metro daily to go the nonprofit route, following The Salt Lake Tribune. A few other large regional dailies, most notably The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Tampa Bay Times, are for-profits owned by nonprofits.
Read the rest at Media Nation.
