---
title: "Pittsburgh Post-Gazette to shut down"
description: "☀️ Happy Thursday! The Briefing is your guide to the world of news and information. Sign up here! In today’s email: 🔥 Featured story The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which started publishing in the late 1700s and won a Pulitzer Prize as recently as 2019, will shut down on May 3. Its unionized workers recently ended a more than three-year strike after […]"
date: "2026-01-08"
authors:
  - name: "cstaubin"
url: "https://www.pewresearch.org/newsletter/the-briefing/pittsburgh-post-gazette-to-shut-down/"
---

# Pittsburgh Post-Gazette to shut down

**☀️ Happy Thursday!** *The Briefing is your guide to the world of news and information*.* [**Sign up here!**](https://www.pewresearch.org/sign-up-for-the-briefing/)*

**In today*’*s email:**

- **Featured story:** Pittsburgh Post-Gazette to shut down

- **In other news:** How the new Pentagon press corps covered Venezuela

- **Looking ahead:** What news influencers and social media stars mean for the future of journalism

- **Chart of the week:** Most teens visit YouTube and TikTok daily, including about 1 in 5 who say they do almost constantly

🔥 **Featured story**

The **Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, **which started publishing in the late 1700s and won a Pulitzer Prize as recently as 2019, [will shut down on May 3](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/07/business/media/pittsburgh-post-gazette-closing.html). Its unionized workers recently ended a more than three-year strike after a court ruling in favor of the union, but the Post-Gazette’s owners said that the **newspaper has lost more than $350 million over the past 20 years,** making “continued cash losses at this scale no longer sustainable.”

Fewer Americans say they are getting local news from daily newspapers: A third [said in 2024](https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2024/05/07/americans-changing-relationship-with-local-news/) that they do this at least sometimes, down from 43% in 2018. This fits with the **broader decline of local newspapers, **which have suffered [major losses in revenue](https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/fact-sheet/newspapers/#economics) since their business model was disrupted by the arrival of the internet and eventually smartphones.

📌 **In other news**

- The new **Pentagon press corps** covered Venezuela with [few scoops and high praise](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2026/01/07/pentagon-press-hegseth-venezuela/)

- **White House** debuts [site about what happened on Jan. 6](https://deadline.com/2026/01/trump-january-6th-revisionist-history-1236665860/) with false claims

- What will happen to **public media **now that the [Corporation for Public Broadcasting has voted to shut down](https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/tv/2026/01/07/are-pbs-npr-shutting-down-corporation-public-broadcasting/88046403007/)?

- [A timeline of content deals](https://digiday.com/media/a-timeline-of-the-major-deals-between-publishers-and-ai-tech-companies-in-2025/) between **AI companies** and **publishers **in 2025

- [A closer look](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/jan/05/bari-weiss-cbs-news) at the first few months of **Bari Weiss’ **CBS News tenure

- New York Mayor **Mamdani **holds [City Hall tour and private news conference for “new media”](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/07/business/media/zohran-mamdani-social-media-creators.html?partner=slack&smid=sl-share) and social media influencers

- [Copycat website](https://www.denverpost.com/2026/01/05/cu-independent-website-ai-impersonator/?share=rpusoe05iidaaappstta) poses as Colorado student paper to push **AI slop**

- **Warner Bros. Discovery** board [again reject](https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/07/wbd-rejects-paramount-offer-again-netflix-deal.html)[s](https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/07/wbd-rejects-paramount-offer-again-netflix-deal.html) **Paramount **takeover bid

📅 **Looking ahead**

After YouTube creator **Nick Shirley’s** viral video raised **allegations of fraud surrounding** **child care funding in Minnesota, **a [new article](https://www.newyorker.com/news/fault-lines/what-a-viral-youtube-video-says-about-the-future-of-journalism) in The New Yorker looks at the rise of investigative journalism by news influencers and social media personalities – and asks what this new realm of journalism means for the future of the field.

About one-in-five Americans (21%) say they regularly get news from news influencers, according to [our recent survey](https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/fact-sheet/news-influencers-fact-sheet/). When asked why they use news influencers to get news, people who regularly get news from this source name several factors as major reasons, including 54% who say influencers offer help understanding current events and civic issues and 46% who say they share different information than other sources.

A [separate 2024 analysis](https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2024/11/18/americas-news-influencers/) found that 77% of news influencers had no current or past affiliation with a news organization, signaling many news influencers’ independence from legacy media. And about half of news influencers (52%) explicitly identify with a particular political orientation.

📊 **Chart of the week**

**A majority of U.S. teens ages 13 to 17 use YouTube, TikTok and Instagram daily,** according to a September-October [Pew Research Center survey](https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2025/12/09/teens-social-media-and-ai-chatbots-2025/). About three-quarters (76%) of teens report visiting YouTube daily, while 61% say the same about TikTok and 55% are on Instagram every day.

**This includes around one-in-five teens who say they use TikTok and YouTube almost constantly** (21% and 17%, respectively) and 12% who say this about Instagram.

![](https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/12/PI_2025.12.09_teens-social-media-ai_0-03.png)

*👋 That's all for this week. *

The Briefing is compiled by Pew Research Center staff, including Naomi Forman-Katz, Christopher St. Aubin, Emily Tomasik, Joanne Haner, and Sawyer Reed. It is edited by Michael Lipka and copy edited by David Kent.

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