Pittsburgh Post-Gazette staffers say ‘intoxicated’ publisher threatened them

By Tim Elfrink February 14 at 5:20 AM

At the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, tensions have run hot for years between the newsroom and the daily’s publisher, John Robinson Block. The journalists’ union hasn’t had a contract for nearly two years, and Block has overseen the contentious firing of an anti-Trump cartoonist and the publication of a hotly debated editorial that defended President Trump’s offensive language toward immigrants.

The relationship is so sour that the union recently put up a “Shame on the Blocks!” poster in the newsroom. That message, the paper’s staff members now say, sparked a late-night outburst from Block on Saturday so disturbing that the union has filed a federal labor complaint and some reporters have refused to return to work out of fear.

After Block’s brother, with whom he runs the company, defended his actions as “an unfortunate exchange with employees” driven by financial worries, the union released four statements Wednesday from staff members who witnessed the tirade. They describe the publisher as “intoxicated” and say he threatened to fire employees while roughly handling his weeping 12-year-old daughter, who was trying to escape the scene.

“The only reason that we released these statements is because the company is putting out a false narrative of what occurred,” Michael A. Fuoco, a longtime reporter at the paper and president of the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh, told The Washington Post. “I find it absurd that the chairman of a media company is putting out a lie.”

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