A box full of the Pittsburgh City Paper in the Strip District neighborhood on Wednesday, Jan. 4.
Niven Sabherwal / Screenshot
Pittsburgh City Paper is sold to the company that owns the Post-Gazette
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Oliver Morrison/WESA
Niven Sabherwal / Screenshot
A box full of the Pittsburgh City Paper in the Strip District neighborhood on Wednesday, Jan. 4.
The company that owns the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is buying the Pittsburgh City Paper from the company that owns the Butler Eagle.
Cars Holding, Inc., a subsidiary of Block Communications Inc., announced in a press release today that it would acquire the City Paper from Eagle Media, with the sale being finalized this month.
The release says the City Paper will keep all of its employees and operate independently.
“We believe in the need for independent journalism and are happy to further our commitment to the city of Pittsburgh and, specifically, to support this well-established entertainment and alternative news publication,” said Allan Block, the chairman and CEO of Block, in the press release.
The publisher of the Butler Eagle, Rod Vodenichar, said in the joint press release that without the sale the City Paper would have had to close. “We are pleased to announce that we have found an excellent successor to continue the Pittsburgh City Paper,” he said. “We have learned over time that the City Paper wasn’t a good fit for our business and trying to manage a Pittsburgh publication from a distance just wasn’t working.”
The City Paper has been one of the most active publications in the city covering the ongoing Post-Gazette labor strike, publishing at least five stories since some staff members went on strike.
The Butler Eagle started printing the Post-Gazette last year during the labor strike. When the City Paper tried to report on this, Lisa Cunningham, the City Paper’s editor at the time, said she was yelled at by management and she ended up resigning over the incident. The City Paper covered the controversy, which included both its former and new owners.
This is the third sale of the City Paper in recent years, Cunningham said, adding that the last two buyers also promised not to interfere with the City Paper’s work.
Cunningham also said it raises questions as to whether Eagle Media interfered in the story because the plan to sell the City Paper to the Post-Gazette was already underway. “Obviously [Vodenichar] wanted the story covered up,” she said. “I don’t know if it was to protect the Butler Eagle or to protect the sale. Everything is speculation at this point, but it can’t be a coincidence.”
Vodenichar didn’t respond to an email and a voicemail to request comment.
If the new owners did interfere, the city risks losing a distinctive voice that earned the community’s trust, Cunningham said. During Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, for example, she said some protesters wouldn’t allow themselves to be photographed by the Post-Gazette because of disagreements with the Block Communications about its treatment of Black employees. But those same protesters, she said, did allow themselves to be photographed by the City Paper. Cunningham said she hopes Pittsburgh will continue to support the staff at the City Paper as they go through this difficult transition.
Zack Tanner, the president of the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh, said the subsidiary that bought the City Paper is different than the one that owns the Post-Gazette, even though they are both owned by the same parent company. The Post-Gazette has been printing content from other Block Communications publications during the labor strike, and Tanner said he wouldn’t be surprised if the Post-Gazette begin to print City Paper articles as well.
“We wish the company would bargain in good faith with us, rather than buying different outlets around town,” he said. “But asfar as whether the strike had anything to do with this sale or not, I have no idea.”
The press release says the terms of the sale were not disclosed.
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