Pgh Lesbian Correspondents

Last week, I attended a town hall meeting organized by the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh. It was invigorating, but I had to work through some stuff to step out of my skin and into my role as a supporter.

As I headed out the door to the meeting, imposter syndrome wrapped me in familiar tendrils. But I resisted. Walking into uncomfortable spaces to support the workers and save the paper isn’t just about turning out at 1 AM for an action. That is also important. My version was going into a room of people I barely know, navigating social interactions I can’t always understand, and taking ownership of my passion.

Hanging around people who’ve deftly steered an entire union through nearly 24 months of a strike, people who also tell stories, is heady stuff. There’s an obvious sense of solidarity among the Guild members, but journalists know how to engage other people, too. They walk into lots of rooms filled with unfamiliar faces and look for the stories, not looking for cliques.

In spite of misgivings, I spoke up several times. The Guild even specifically asked me to address the reasons I’m so passionate about this movement. I’m mentioning my anxiety and apprehension because in spite of the strong community organizing skills of the union members, Pittsburgh is a town that puts journalists on the ‘Pittsburgh famous’ mantel, especially if you are political. Try having lunch with Tony Norman and be prepared for a slew of interruptions. We see KDKA anchors at the drive-in and ice cream place, swarmed by admiring fans. Walking into a room filled with journalists and newspaper workers is the sort of cool space I’d like to frequent more often.

Where did my newspaper passion begin?

As a kid, reading the paper usually involved flopping down on the living room floor after my parents finished the sections. Often, childhood boredom defined my reading choices, wandering away from usual fare to whatever was on the next page. Boredom often expanded my consciousness far more than a classroom assignment.

Boredom morphed into curiosity. I was intrigued enough that I read the whole thing. I read about business, reviews of the Pittsburgh Symphony, the cultural power of cooking, and the comics. I found the tip about my internship with then-Congressman Rick Santorum in the Post-Gazette because I stumbled across the Pittsburgh Foundation request for applications while reading something else.

I night have missed my glory days if it were not for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

We often discuss the stories told by the journalists and their colleagues, but there are stories forever unspoken by the millions of people who read the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Neighbors who unfolded the daily edition to find the pulse of their community. They won’t ever give an interview or a quote, but they find their lived experiences woven into the articles.

You can’t tell every story. A deft narrative reaches from what’s unique to what’s universal, stopping along the way to connect the dots to help us follow along. Are you still with me?

In recent years, I didn’t usually read the paper copy of the PG. It surprises me to realize how much I now miss it. How much I physically yearn to slide off the plastic bag and unfold a newspaper. We do take the Sunday New York Times print edition, but that’s a different type of satiety.

‘Physically yearning to slide off a plastic bag’ is definitely the most suggestive sentence I’ve written about the Post-Gazette. Maybe I need to reexamine this passion?

I miss driving through a neighborhood, noting the houses with a telltale green bag. I miss the links circulating among my tweeps and other social media circles – the headline story, Tony Norman’s columns (he retired before the strike), unexpected gems from other sections, with a helping side of outrage/satisfaction/confusion spurring conversations in the comments.

Of course, I still remember the first time I was mentioned, my first letter to the editor, my first guest post, and more. Make no mistake, I never wanted to write for the Post-Gazette. I just wanted to read it forever.

I wrote a blog post in 2018 laying out my Post-Gazette specific bucket list (now known as a desire list.)

The loss runs deep

No one can give us back two years of news coverage without the News Guild professionals. They can hopefully revisit and stick with important stories like the train derailment in East Palestine or update us on the assault via school board in every district in the region. But there are too many lost opportunities and untold stories.

If the rightful team had been at the helm these past 24 months, how would we be talking about the City/County response to homeless neighbors? Or the realities of decreased staffing of the Police Bureau? The story of the unsuccessful ballot initiative? Even the election.

Those are wounds we community members need to acknowledge and dress to avoid festering. It is okay to acknowledge a community trauma and acknowledge that there are specific individuals whose experiences have been deeper. Still, a series of concentric circles still revolve around traumatic loci. You do not need to be in the First Circle to be wounded.

The outward ripple that will accompany the end of the strike, the return of our damn paper, is hard to predict.

Will advertisers return? Will subscribers renew? Will it ever be the same?

Twenty-four months of any strike transforms a community. In this strike, the owners  almost silenced a community. The scrappy Pittsburgh Union Progress kept journalism flowing through our communal veins, reminding us that silencing can be resisted, that storytelling is a salve for even the most grievous wounds.

Returning to the meeting itself, I felt invigorated. I love my suggestions, but I got excited by all of the other ideas rocketing around the room while half a dozen journalists took notes.

What’s next?

Nothing has been finalized yet. The National Labor Relations Board made some encouraging moves, now a federal judge must weigh in on an injunction. Then, the unions pivot to reunification plans, reentry strategies, and releasing breath they’ve held for two + years.

The Block family bears the yeoman’s share of the blame for the trauma. They collectively stopped caretaking the community asset that filled their coffers, conflating stock shares with the soul of a newspaper. All of them. I’ve said repeatedly that anyone who benefits financially from the PG/Block media resources should make amends, even if they are a progressive yoga studio owner who has barely met JR Block or the good sibling everyone values. When you accept the financial privilege that comes from owning the community newspaper, you agree to shoulder the moral and ethical responsibility. We cannot afford to forget that truth.

It shouldn’t matter if ancestor Paul Block would be ashamed. It does matter that all of us are ashamed of the Block family. But that’s their burden to carry and resolve if they choose to do so. My burden is to remind them that we aren’t going to forget that they abandoned us, the entire region.

The Union Progress wrote a solid summary of the meeting. They opt to keep suggested strategy and tactics close to the chest for now so I’ll do the same.

What will community healing look like? I don’t know. I hope it means resubscribing, injecting the paper with long-time supporters and new readers. I hope it means reconsidering what we define as news coverage across all outlets and demanding better. Perhaps it will mean expanding our news consumption to TikTok, blogs, podcasts and expecting the PG to keep up, not chase after these tools.

I hope therapists and healers who specialize in community trauma will be brought into the work, to help us understand this trauma and how we deal with it.

I’ll be resubscribing. I have faith in the striking workers that they won’t forget about us even as they navigate their return. The solidarity soldiers on.

I’m not quite sure what the modern equivalent of a kid sprawled on their living room floor, pouring through the newspaper would be. But I know she’s out there somewhere, in need of good newspapering whether she’s aware of it or not. Her curiosity to understand the world contains multitudes.