The Trump-loving nepo-babies who own one of the country’s most storied newspapers abruptly shut it down in a two-minute Zoom call Wednesday.
Billionaire twins John and Allan Block suddenly told dozens of workers for the 125-year-old Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that it will cease publication on May 3. The paper had won a Pulitzer Prize in 2019 for its coverage of the Tree of Life Synagogue massacre. But at 1:15 p.m., with just 45 minutes notice, they played a pre-taped Zoom announcement that the newspaper would close completely.
“There was a blank, black screen the first two minutes of the meeting,” one reporter recounted to the Daily Beast. “Then, this woman who I’ve never seen before came on the screen and told us the [Post-Gazette] was shuttering in May.”
The twins are third generation owners of the paper through the family company Block Communications which also owns the Toledo Blade. That publication served as the inspiration for The Office spin-off The Paper, a sitcom about a struggling regional newspaper. The Post-Gazette has roughly 83,000 paid subscribers.
The twins, 71, have heavily backed President Donald Trump and have donated thousands of dollars to Republican causes.
In 2016, John Block sparked accusations of media bias after he was photographed aboard Trump’s private plane following a campaign rally in Toledo, Ohio.
Two years later, the Post-Gazette made national headlines for “shifting right” after John Block fired the Post-Gazette’s veteran cartoonist, Rob Rogers, over cartoons critical of Trump.
During the president’s 2020 campaign, John Block ordered the editorial board to endorse Trump—despite previously granting its request not to endorse a candidate—an insider at the publication told the Daily Beast. The board was forced to scrap its planned editorial just an hour before the print deadline and hastily write a new piece backing Trump, much to the staffers’ dismay.
On Wednesday, the brothers delivered the stunning news to staff via a brief, pre-recorded video, Post-Gazette reporters told the Daily Beast—despite owning multiple properties within short driving distance of the newsroom, including John Block’s sprawling Squirrel Hill mansion worth over $1.5 million.
Instead, staffers received an email at 12:34 p.m. informing them of a mandatory online meeting scheduled for 1:15 p.m. The meeting turned out to be a pre-recorded message that reporters described as “dehumanizing.”
“It definitely came as a shock to everyone, including the managers, who I don’t think were informed before us,” the reporter added.
Another staffer told the Daily Beast: “not to have the guts or decency to tell people in person and using a pre-recorded message is pretty insulting. If not dehumanizing. We deserved better.”
Perhaps the twins took inspiration from Trump himself, who is famously averse to firing people—despite his well-known catchphrase: “You’re fired.”
BCI was founded nearly 125 years ago by Allan and John Block’s grandfather, Paul Block, in New York City. Allan Block owns a 25 percent stake in BCI, as does his brother, John Block, but the two have feuded repeatedly according to court filings from one of their several lawsuits between the brothers, none of which have been adjudicated.
Allan Block owns a 25 percent stake in BCI, as does his brother, John Block, the Post-Gazette has reported. Family trusts—whose beneficiaries are members of the Block family—collectively own the remaining 50 percent of the company. Other assets include regional television franchises including Fox and NBC stations, some of which were sold to Gray Media in August, and cable and broadband services in parts of Ohio.
For years, the Post-Gazette has been mired in turmoil. Roughly two dozen Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh journalists returned to work in November after a more-than-three-year labor strike—the longest in U.S. history. Staffers hired during the strike were assured they would retain their positions if striking workers returned.
Tensions between ownership and union journalists reached a boiling point in 2019, when John Block reportedly stormed into the newsroom and threatened to “burn the place down.”
Several staffers believe the Blocks are shutting down the outlet as punishment after a federal appeals court upheld a November ruling finding that the Post-Gazette illegally declared an impasse in union negotiations to impose its own terms.
“It seems crazy that a city the size of Pittsburgh is losing its largest news outlet, and I can’t believe the company is shutting down instead of selling,” one reporter said.
The Post-Gazette also won Pulitzer Prizes in 1983 and 1998. It also won a George Polk award for a long-running investigation into how electronics giant Phillips sold faulty CPAP machines despite knowing they a were a danger to the users. The investigation prompted the company to halt U.S. production last year.
The Daily Beast has reached out to Block Communications for comment.
