Pittsburgh Catholic Newspaper Terminates All Employees, Stop Distribution

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- The official newspaper of the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh has reportedly terminated all of its employees.

According to KDKA's news partner, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the news came during a conference call on Thursday. 

"We were all terminated permanently," John Franko, a reporter who has been at the paper for nearly 30 years told the Post-Gazette.

"We were expecting layoffs, but this came as a shock. I guess they did what they had to do."

"We didn't really expect to completely lose our jobs," said Bill Cone, editor of the newspaper, to the Post-Gazette.

"The operations manager and I knew that our general financial situation at the newspaper was difficult. We've known that for months and years. ... We were thinking it would be more of a temporary thing, something like a hiatus. Now, they're saying it could be months before the diocese itself is able to get back to normal with people going to Mass."

According to the Post-Gazette, the circulation of Pittsburgh Catholic was about 83,000, Mr. Cone said.

About 50,000 of those were mailed in bulk to the churches, and the other roughly 30,000 copies were mailed to households.

In addition to circulation money from parishes, half of the budget comes from advertising.