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“We will wait every local paper out and let them continuously bleed until we are the last ones standing. We will suck them dry of their best talent at every moment. We will make business extremely difficult for them.”

That infamous quote came courtesy of Alex Mather, a co-founder of The Athletic, in a 2017 interview with the New York Times.

For a time, those words seemed prophetic. However, The Athletic did what all trendy startups do. It burned through cash, failed to achieve profitability, and began seeking a buyer. Meanwhile, many of those writers and reporters who jumped ship ended up jumping back.

There was a bit of irony when, six years later, the Times bought The Athletic and purged its own sports department, simultaneously disproving and proving Mather’s sentiments.

I mention that notorious quote because, regardless of what happened with The Athletic, the sentiment behind it was very much how many Silicon Valley and tech people thought about newspapers (and, well, everything else). They saw newspapers and traditional journalism as stodgy, archaic, and unprofitable. Couple those notions with venture capital and rich people with fragile egos, and that’s essentially how we find ourselves in the situation we’re in now.

On Wednesday, Block Communications, the owner of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, a newspaper whose roots date back to 1786, announced it will cease operations of the western Pennsylvania publication on May 3. In its own report on its shuttering, Block revealed that it has lost more than $350 million in cash operating the newspaper over the past two decades.

In a perfect metaphorical flourish, ownership blamed a recent court ruling that required the company to honor its 2014 labor contract for the decision.

When my colleagues told me to join a Zoom despite being on medical leave, I knew it wouldn’t be good news. I wasn’t expecting this.

I’m incredibly proud of the work I accomplished in my (almost) three years at the Post-Gazette, and of the legacy of the paper itself. A sad day.

— Abby Schnable (@AbbySchnable) January 7, 2026

For our purposes, the decision means that a robust sports reporting division dedicated to covering Pittsburgh’s many professional and college teams will be disbanded. It includes columnist Joe Starkey, Pitt reporter Christopher Carter, editor Rob Joesbury, Penguins and Pirates reporter Jason Mackey, Pitt sports reporter Abby Schnable, enterprise reporter Noah Hiles, and Gerry Dulac, who has been covering the Steelers and golf for the paper since 1993.

Proud of the work we’ve done. Proud of what this place has meant and the people I/we have gotten to follow to try our best to uphold the tradition. Don’t care about your religion, politics or level of Pirates anger. This sucks: https://t.co/HEwwrbsiq6

— Jason Mackey (@JMackeyPG) January 7, 2026

The Post-Gazette is hardly the first notable newspaper to shut down in recent years, but these are gut-punches to the media industry all the same. A critical resource for readers for generations, the paper has won several Pulitzer Prizes, including in 2019 for its coverage of the Tree of Life synagogue shooting.

Its departure will leave the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, which went digital in 2016, as the largest daily media outlet serving the Greater Pittsburgh metropolitan area.

It’s hard not to get despondent about the state of the industry (amongst so many other things these days), and the truth is that this closure is a feature, not a bug. There is more to come as the media industry continues to devalue expertise and trust for whatever the hell Jeff Bezos is doing with the Washington Post.

Amidst the bleakness, we can look to the good work that’s still being done. Media companies and their billionaire owners might be giving up on journalists, but journalists aren’t giving up on doing what they do best.

Here’s our story on Lincoln suspending its 2026-27 season, and Desmond Gumbs stepping down as head coach (but remaining as the school’s athletic director), in the wake of our investigation into the program. www.sfgate.com/collegesport…

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— Gabe Fernandez (@thelatinochild.bsky.social) January 7, 2026 at 2:03 PM

Also on Wednesday, Gabe Fernandez at SFGate published a piece about a local university shutting down its embattled football program following their interview with head coach and athletic director Desmond Gumbs, amid allegations of inadequate medical and training services, haphazard red-eye travel itineraries, and lackluster food and water availability for players.

In that interview, Gumbs accused a USA Today journalist of having “raped” him with his reporting of the allegations and also threatened Fernandez following the conversation.

“After agreeing to pose for some photos immediately after the initial interview, Gumbs offered a slate of parting words regarding any mention of that critical story about his program,” wrote Fernandez. “He first said that writing this story ‘would not be good for you or your paper,’ and then added, ‘you don’t want to make an enemy out of me.’ He finally shared that ESPN was also working on a story about Lincoln and insisted that SFGate ‘let ESPN be the bad guy’ because he knew the reporter assigned to chase it, and added, ‘I know where he lives.’”

Reading this story, and its impact, a few hours after reading about the Post-Gazette’s impending closure gave me a modicum of hope.

Once the digital home of the San Francisco Chronicle, SFGate is now its own media entity, covering the Bay Area and beyond, earning awards and recognition as it continues to grow. It’s not a newspaper in the traditional, tactile sense, but it’s every bit the journalistic endeavor that the Post-Gazette and so many other companies were before it. It’s an evolution, not a discarding.

Journalism, like nature, finds a way. And there’s something heartening about knowing so many reporters, writers, editors, and staffers still want to fight the good fight.

Or, to put it simply, tell the stories that need to be told.

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