So apparently, Black reporters are not allowed to report or comment on black protests because…they’re biased.
Holy Mary Mother of Christ.
Since when did the Post Gazette become the Daily Caucasian?
Very disappointing, as I like the Burgh.
Heard about this on NPR. Disgusting but not surprising. Just yet another way in which black people are singled out and treated more harshly.
To some extent it is the standard MSM fear of looking ‘biased’ (vs. raw racism) - so you can’t have a black person expressing an opinion in a non-work related area and then cover the protests because the butt-hurt right-wingers will cry “biased fake news!”.
Of course, a white colleague had made equivalent comments and was merely told to knock it off and allowed to continue his coverage, so there is of course a measure of racism and probably misogyny mixed in there.
The NPR article does not reveal what the white reporter’s “vulgar” tweet comment about an accused looter was, so there’s no way of determining equivalency (he was barred from protest coverage two days later).
I’d have more faith in NPR’s coverage of this story if it didn’t inaccurately claim that a Post-Gazette editorial said that Trump could never be called racist. It didn’t.
NPR said that the editorial said that Trump’s remarks should never be characterized as racist.
The editorial concludes with:
I read that as stating that mere words cannot justify calling someone a racist, only violent physical attacks. So, I agree with NPR’s summation.
Since it has Trump-supporting white supremacist owners.
I’m sure that they restrict white reporters from covering white nationalist protests.
A definition of racism that effectively exempts anyone with power from being “racist” is very convenient for those powerful people. By that definition Hitler wasn’t racist because he didn’t* personally *kill the victims of the Holocaust.
Well, since that clown in the White House has actually committed acts of violence, to wit verbally encouraging physical acts of violence, against minorities, then, yes, he is a racist, also by their stupid metric.
The PG has been going downhill for awhile now, ever since they fired Rob Rogers.
The tweet was just a joke – all it did it seems was compare looters to the assholes who attend the annual Kenny Chesney concert. (And are known for completely trashing the surrounding area). So I don’t know WHY something that silly would get people out and out banned from covering protests. I personally found it amusing.*
*Mainly because I used to work at the Science Center, and they share the parking lot with Heinz Field. The first year Chesney came to Pittsburgh, they kept trying to sneak into the place without paying, use our bathrooms, etc. The years after that, they just closed on those days.
I remember the firing of Rogers. I kinda knew then that the Gazette was trying to reach out to Trump Land (Southwestern PA, Ohio, WV).
I LOVE that place! When did you work there? I’d love to know if it’s likely we encountered you on one of our passes through Pittsburgh.
Most people in Allegheny County proper though hate Trump. People were PISSED about the firing. Especially since the new guy sucks donkey balls. Not so much because he’s conservative, but because he’s just not funny. Not to mention Rogers was local, this dude is syndicated.
Late 2006 to early 2009. I got laid off, sadly, I’m guessing due to the fact that I was missing a lot of work.
I think the most important part of the answer to the OP is about how the editor situation came to be.
The Block family has owned the paper for a century. The current Block owner seems quite conservative compared to his forefathers; they were liberal enough that Richard Mellon Scaife expanded his conservative paper from the neighboring county (the Tribune Review) including hiring Christopher Ruddy to investigate the Vincent Foster murder accusation against the Clintons.
Block also owns the Toledo Blade a paper that I don’t know much about but which seems to have been more conservative than the PG, at least in the 2015-2020 time-frame.
In 2018, Block announced that the editorial departments of the two papers would merge and that the head of the Blade (Keith Burris) would be in charge of the consolidated editorial department. It is this consolidated department that published the infamous Reason As Racism editorial and fired the great Rob Rogers.
Here is a Columbia Journalism article about the situation. (Note: that link is wonky, I have to click it into another window then reload it in that window to see the article.)
Guinastasia:
Well, we were definitely there in June of 2008 (first stop in an awesome, very memorable summer road trip), so it’s at least possible.
Thanks for posting this - very informative and it’s a damn shame that the PG has declined so badly. That “Reason as Racism” editorial made me fucking sick to my stomach knowing what a great paper the Post-Gazette used to be.
I lived in the Pittsburgh area for a few years and recall the PG as being a moderate paper, which was inclusive to a range of opinions and voices. At the time, it was one of the best dailies around that I had read. That was a quite a while ago, obviously.
John Block has gone off his rocker — Post-Gazette staffers, shaken by publisher’s behavior, stand by their story - Columbia Journalism Review
The Newspaper Guild has labeled his regime as a “reign of terror” — Newspaper Guild Votes “No Confidence” in Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Executive Editor Keith Burris, Publisher John Robinson Block and owner Block Communications Inc. – Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh
Good find.
And just, wow! I had no idea how bad things were.
I was aware of the incident that Guinastasia posted, but I wasn’t aware how utterly batshit the publisher was.
Jesus, I hadn’t read about THAT. Good lord, this is depressing.
And Pittsburgh itself, at least Allegheny County, isn’t a big bastion of Trump fans. Even in the outlying areas, he’s lost a lot of support when he failed to keep his promises to them. (Why anyone believed he’d be able to bring back steel and coal, who knows?)
Who is the PG trying to attract? Do they want to become the Trib, only with shittier sports coverage?