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Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

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The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review is a newspaper in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. It was founded in 1992 as an offshoot of the Greensburg Tribune-Review following a press strike at the two previously dominant Pittsburgh dailies.

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Greensburg Tribune-Review and affiliated dailies claim a Sunday circulation of 221,000 readers. They are published by the Tribune Review Publishing Company, which was purchased by Richard Mellon Scaife in 1970. The newspaper is generally considered to have a conservative opinion page.

Investigative reporting

The newspaper is known for its lengthy investigations [1] into allegations of corruption, [2] [3] allegations of government malfeasance, [4] social injustice, [5] [6] and complex sports issues. [7] [8]

Carl Prine, an investigative reporter for the newspaper, conducted a probe with the CBS news magazine 60 Minutes that highlighted the lack of security at the nation's most dangerous chemical plants following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. [9] The reporters were charged with trespassing at one plant during their investigation, [10] but were acquitted when the judge accepted that the story had been in the public interest. [11]

Competition

The chain of Scaife newspapers competes against the larger Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. In 2005, a report by the Audit Bureau of Circulations determined that the Post-Gazette had lost 5,000 subscribers on its Monday-to-Friday deliveries, [12] while the Greensburg Tribune-Review and Pittsburgh Tribune-Review lost 8,000 subscribers Monday to Friday, with deeper losses on Sundays. [13]

Although the circulation slumps are part of a nationwide trend in the U.S., both the Tribune-Review and Post-Gazette lost readers at a greater rate than the national average of 1.6 percent for dailies with more than 100,000 subscribers. [14]

In 2003, the Tribune-Review launched an afternoon tabloid, Trib PM. [15].

Merger

Edward H. Harrell, the president of the Tribune Review Publishing Company, announced in January 2005 that most of the regional editions of the paper would have their newsroom, management, and circulation departments merged and that staff reductions would follow. The merged papers include the Tribune-Review of Greensburg, the Valley News Dispatch of Tarentum, The Leader-Times of Kittanning, The Daily Courier of Connellsville and the Blairsville Dispatch. The Valley Independent, the only paper with a unionized newsroom and contract, will not be affected. [16] The company incorporated as Trib Total Media in the summer of 2005, and purchased Gateway Newspapers, a community publication group servicing approximately 22 communities in and around Pittsburgh's Allegheny County.

Two managers were immediately laid off; the exact number of proposed redundancies was not announced. [17] In September 2005 Harrell announced his retirement as president of Tribune-Review Publishing Company, effective December 31, 2005. He had served as president since 1989.[18] Several staff writers were laid off in December, 2005, as two of Gateway's newspapers were discontinued.

The Teresa Heinz Kerry incident

One Tribune-Review story went national when Colin McNickle, editor of the newspaper's editorial page, attended a July 26, 2004 speech at the Massachusetts State House given by Teresa Heinz Kerry, who had been the subject of two attacks in the Trinune-Reviews's opinion pages.

On the subject of declining civility during political campaigns, Heinz Kerry told the conference: "We need to turn back some of the creeping, un-Pennsylvanian and sometimes un-American traits that are coming into some of our politics." McKnickle later asked her what she meant by "un-American activity." (sic)

McNickle: "What did you mean?"

Heinz Kerry: "I didn't say that. I didn't say that."

McNickle: "I was just asking what you said."

Heinz Kerry: "Why do you put those words in my mouth?"

McNickle: "You said something about 'un-American activity.'"

A Kerry campaign worker attempted to stop the questioning.

Heinz Kerry: "No, I didn't say that, I did not say 'activity' or 'un-American.' Those were your words."

She walked away, paused, consulted Gov. Ed Rendell, D-Pennsylvania, and returned to McNickle.

Heinz Kerry: "Are you from the Tribune-Review?"

McNickle: "Yes I am."

Heinz Kerry: "Understandable. You said something I didn't say — now shove it." [19][20]

Some critics said her harsh language stemmed from the paper's printing of negative reports about her and her second husband, who was running as the Democratic nominee for president. The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review had reprinted a 1997 gossip piece from the Boston Herald that suggested her husband had had a "very private" friendship with a younger female colleague. McNickle had also run an op-ed piece, written by Tom Randall of the Scaife-funded Capital Research Center, alleging that Heinz's contributions to the Tides Foundation were funding radical Islamist, environmentalist, and gay and lesbian advocacy groups. [21] (The allegations were deemed false by the watchdog group, FactCheck.org, [22] but were deemed factual by the conservative news agency, World News Daily, [23] and by the U.S. Senate Environment & Public Works Committee. [24] [25] (pdf)

The spat between Heinz Kerry and McNickle continues to be debated within the press. WTAE-TV news anchor Scott Baker captured Heinz Kerry's remarks on tape and insisted McNickle had asked "a pretty straightforward question."

He was not combative. I think he seemed to be polite. The question that he asked was one that had already occurred to me," Baker said. "Clearly, she was rankled by it. [26]

On August 6, 2004, the Poynter journalism site posted an article by Geneva Overholser titled "Omitting the Inconveniently Telling Detail" about the omission of the connection to Scaife in most of the coverage she had seen, which made McNickle look like an ordinary reporter instead of "a journalist from a paper with a long and ugly history with Heinz Kerry and her family."[27]

McNickle, who said he had received death threats as a result of the confrontation, noted that his question was never answered: [28] [29]

Let's address the real issue here –- Mrs. Heinz-Kerry said something publicly for which any reporter worth his salt would seek clarification/expansion. What did she mean? We still don't know. Attempting to kill the questioner won't get us the answer.

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