Managing editor to leave Pittsburgh Post-Gazette at the end of March

Sally Stapleton, managing editor at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, said she will leave her position at the end of March, according to sources at the paper. She did not say why she was leaving and under what circumstances, in a brief announcement to the newsroom Tuesday.

“I have loved being part of this incredibly talented and dedicated staff,” Stapleton wrote in an email to WESA.

Stapleton is the second high-ranking editor to exit the paper in the last few months. She served as interim executive editor after David Shribman unexpectedly announced his early retirement in December. Keith Burris was appointed to the top editor position in February. Burris also leads the editorial sections of both the Post-Gazette and its sister paper, The Toledo Blade.  

His appointment came after the paper’s publisher John Robinson Block, visited the newsroom late one Saturday night in February in what newsroom employees called a ‘bizarre’ sequence of events that left staff shocked and concerned. According to eyewitness accounts, Stapleton – after being called in at Block’s request – was one of several people who dealt with the publisher that night.

Stapleton joined the newspaper in 2016 as assistant managing editor in visuals.