Navigating Precarity: Disruption and Decline at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

ABSTRACT

Since 2017, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (PG) has faced multiple disruptions, including a bitter labor conflict and various public controversies, that have threatened the credibility of this long-standing metropolitan newspaper. To understand how PG journalists and its union have navigated such pressures, this study uses the concept of compounding precarity to capture the multiple, overlapping parts of journalistic precarity that together effect the lives and work of journalists. By interviewing current and past PG journalists, the analysis reveals the individual- and collective-level tactics workers used to navigate these conditions. The study finds that, though journalists individualized precarity at times, union logics largely structured how they responded to compounding precarity. While this illustrates the union’s influence at the paper, its inability to sway upper management in numerous disputes reveals the limits of collective organizing at the PG. Given that these issues are not exclusive to the PG, this study highlights the need for cross-coalitional building and structural changes across the news industry in order to spare journalists and journalism from the toxic effects of precarity in late-stage capitalism.

KEYWORDS:

• Journalism
• newspapers
• NewsGuild
• Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
• precarity
• print journalism
• unions

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank the journalists at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette who made this study possible.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Two months after interviews concluded, Payday Report published accusations of sexual misconduct allegedly perpetrated by Fuoco (Elk 2020). The report led to an investigation into the claims and Fuoco’s resignation. Because of his prior role as the PG’s guild president, this study opted to include Fuoco’s interviews, while recognizing the charges made against him.