Питтсбургская Пост-Газетта: История и Современность

Newspaper in Pennsylvania, United States

The Pittsburgh Post Gazette, also known simply as the PG, is the largest newspaper serving metropolitan Pittsburgh in the U. S. state of Pennsylvania. Descended from the Pittsburgh Gazette, established in 1786 as the first newspaper published west of the Allegheny Mountains, the paper formed under its present title in 1927 from the consolidation of the Pittsburgh Gazette Times and The Pittsburgh Post. The Post Gazette ended daily print publication in 2018 and has cut down to two print editions per week (Sunday and Thursday), going online only the rest of the week. In the 2010s, the editorial tone of the paper shifted from liberal to conservative, particularly after the editorial pages of the paper were consolidated in 2018 with The Blade of Toledo, Ohio. After the consolidation, Keith Burris, the pro Trump editorial page editor of The Blade, directed the editorial pages of both papers. Copies are sold for $2 daily & $4 Sundays/Thanksgiving Day in state. This includes Allegheny and adjacent counties. Prices are higher outside the state.

The Post Gazette began its history as a four page weekly called The Pittsburgh Gazette, first published on July 29, 1786, with the encouragement of Hugh Henry Brackenridge. It was the first newspaper published west of the Allegheny Mountains. In 1820, under publishers Eichbaum and Johnston and editor Morgan Neville, the name changed to Pittsburgh Gazette and Manufacturing and Mercantile Advertiser. David MacLean bought the paper in 1822, and later reverted to the former title. Under editor Neville B. Craig, whose service lasted from 1829 to 1841, the Gazette championed the Anti Masonic movement. Craig turned the Gazette into the city's first daily paper, issued every afternoon except Sunday starting on July 30, 1833. In 1844, shortly after absorbing the Advocate, the Gazette switched its daily issue time to morning. Its editorial stance at the time was conservative and strongly favoring the Whig Party. By the 1850s the Gazette was credited with helping to organize a local chapter of the new Republican Party, and with contributing to the election of Abraham Lincoln. The paper was one of the first to suggest tensions between North and South would erupt in war. After consolidating with the Commercial in 1877, the paper was again renamed and was then known as the Commercial Gazette. In 1900, George T. Oliver acquired the paper, merging it six years later with The Pittsburg Times to form The Gazette Times.

The Pittsburgh Post first appeared on September 10, 1842, as the Daily Morning Post. It had its origin in three pro Democratic weeklies, the Mercury, Allegheny Democrat, and American Manufacturer, which came together through a pair of mergers in the early 1840s. The three papers had for years engaged in bitter editorial battles with the Gazette. Like its predecessors, the Post advocated the policies of the Democratic Party. Its political opposition to the Whig and later Republican Gazette was so enduring that an eventual combination of the two rivals would have seemed unlikely.

The 1920s were a time of consolidation in the Pittsburgh newspaper market. In 1923, local publishers banded together to acquire and kill off the Dispatch and Leader. Four years later, William Randolph Hearst negotiated with the Olivers to purchase the morning Gazette Times and its evening sister, the Chronicle Telegraph, while Paul Block arranged to buy out the owner of the morning Post and evening Sun. After swapping the Sun in return for Hearst's Gazette Times, Block had both morning papers, which he combined to form the Post Gazette. Hearst united the evening papers, creating the Sun Telegraph. Both new papers debuted on August 2, 1927.