During this holiday season, around 900 people are known to be sleeping outside or in shelters in Allegheny County.

Housing and homelessness were ever-present concerns in the Pittsburgh region this year. But even as tents went up and shelters swung shut, new leadership came knocking on the doors of power with pledges of responsiveness and equity.

With COVID-driven funding expiring fast, though, the long-haul effects of the pandemic may be just beginning for the city, the Pittsburgh Public Schools and other local institutions.

In so many areas of life in our region — education, environment, equity, public health and safety — the gears of history continued to turn, and sometimes to grind, in 2023. PublicSource highlighted emerging trends and dug deep into the data, documentation and human-level impact.

Here are some of the stories we reported, many of which will echo into 2024 and beyond.

What happens after a camp is cleared?

The year 2022 closed with the City of Pittsburgh removing an encampment along Stockton Avenue on East Allegheny’s edge and sweeping aside with it a longstanding agreement.

The tents went down just as Allegheny County’s new Second Avenue Commons shelter prepared to accept displaced people while the Smithfield United Church of Christ’s basement doors creaked open.

If anybody thought those developments would noticeably blunt the effects of the housing crisis, they were quickly disabused of that notion.

The early days of Second Avenue Commons were marked by staffing problems and safety questions, while this autumn saw ramped-up evictions from its single room occupancy units. The Smithfield shelter, meanwhile, became a haven for hundreds but a bugaboo for Downtown businesses, until its June closure demonstrated just how tattered America’s safety net has become.

“I understand that it can’t exist indefinitely, but this haphazard closure is going to cause death and we need to hold people accountable for that.”

Aubrey Plesh, founder of Team PSBG, which operateD the shelter at the Smithfield United Church of Christ, Downtown

With cold weather’s return came a slow-motion rollout of the county’s and city’s plan for emergency shelter. The persistent presence of at least 200 people on the street, though, left leaders looking for… 

A path to long-term affordable housing

The affordable housing shortage has been well documented for at least a decade, though never so viscerally evident as it was in 2023. Yet one of the most versatile tools for addressing housing needs — the Housing Choice (Section 8) Voucher — had become rusty and blunt by the time PublicSource documented concerns of landlords, tenants and former Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh [HACP] insiders. That reporting spurred pledges of prompt improvements in customer service in the program, but the year ended with curbs on the portability of vouchers.

City development officials, meanwhile, scrambled to preserve affordable units that might otherwise fall into disrepair or convert to market-rate status. A $50 million federal grant raised hopes for more and better Hill District homes.

County-level interests sought to bring to the boroughs some of the models that have taken root in the city. And after nearly a decade of inactivity, the Pittsburgh Land Bank slowly began the process of reclaiming abandoned city property, sidestepping legal obstacles that held up progress. 

While fears of gentrification have been most pronounced in Pittsburgh, housing market forces don’t stop at the city line. That’s why Sara Innamorato was quizzed about the issue during her successful run for county executive, which has everybody asking …

Will a fresh approach on Grant Street really change things?

In what will be the last Allegheny County election season to feature direct six-figure contributions to candidates, Democrat Innamorato barely overcame Republican Joe Rockey’s large fundraising edge. (Conversely, District Attorney Stephen Zappala ran as a Republican, and bested billionaire-backed Democrat Matt Dugan.)

Innamorato’s pledge to focus on the “struggle of everyday people” has a different feel from outgoing County Executive Rich Fitzgerald’s recent emphases, which have tended toward consensus building with business, labor and multiple levels of government, plus stable property taxes.

Innamorato has said she’d like to address increasingly skewed assessments, but also wants to reduce a reassessment’s impact on those least able to afford tax hikes.

Innamorato also heard “alarm bells” in the county’s selection of nonprofit contractor Adelphoi to take over the Shuman Juvenile Detention Center. But she will become executive amid heightened attention to violent crime, which the county has sought to address with a $50 million effort to beef up prevention efforts.

That’s a lot on the plate of the likely most prominent member of what we’ll call … 

Southwestern Pennsylvania’s pandemic-forged leadership class

Innamorato follows political ally Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey to Grant Street, but also joins dozens of new leaders who replaced longtime executives in both the public and private realms.

Also reaching prominence this year were Pittsburgh Police Chief Larry Scirotto (who promptly disappointed some accountability advocates) and University of Pittsburgh Chancellor Joan Gabel (whose statements on Israel and Gaza left some dissatisfied).

The three years of turnover at the top that followed the Great Resignation may be remembered as a pivot point for the Pittsburgh region, but it won’t likely herald an extended and unanimous chorus of Kumbaya. Exhibit one: Gainey and UPMC (now led by Leslie Davis) show no signs of reaching an accord on any obligations the healthcare giant may have to the city’s coffers.

And the city’s bank balance? It’s likely to get leaner, as federal American Rescue Plan Act funds run dry. 

Gainey won’t be the only local leader scrambling for funds because … 

Schools will likely be scraping by

The Pittsburgh Public Schools are expecting similar headwinds as relief funding dries up and costs mount.

To get through the next budget year, PPS needs to draw nearly $30 million from its depleting rainy day fund. But even then, glaring inequalities persist, with students in some schools feeling they’re being taught in a “playground” instead of a rigorous educational setting.

The district also faces challenges over disparate student outcomes, variable teaching quality and uneven costs maintaining a patchwork of buildings that far exceed the needs of a shrinking student pool.

Graduates of high schools in Pittsburgh and suburban districts may be wise to review university balance sheets before filling out applications as … 

Higher ed weathers storms of its own

Higher education fairs little better in a city that’s hinged its revival on an “eds and meds” economy. 

Many newer workforce entrants are questioning the value of a degree altogether. The Community College of Allegheny County lost about half of its student body between 2010 and 2022 – and even a steep drop since the 2020 pandemic doesn’t account for the whole picture, one of steady decline.

Alarm bells rang out from Chatham University’s sedate Squirrel Hill campus in summer, when faculty learned the university faced a $12 million budget hole. To close the gap, President Rhonda Philips laid off department staff, trimmed administration salaries and slashed faculty pension contributions.

Chatham faculty answered with an early unionizing effort they hope will strengthen their position as the administration seeks to patch its deficit. That push can be viewed as one of many efforts aimed at …

Leveling society’s playing field

Campus concerns early in the year were focused primarily on safety for LGBTQ students, and when Pitt’s response wasn’t satisfying, an effort to bring the issue before the Board of Trustees resulted in criminal charges and student conduct hearings. At Duquesne University, a bid to rename Lambda to the Queer Student Union stagnated amid ongoing tension between the school’s Catholic orientation and the growing push for LGBTQ inclusion.

Nearly every university is grappling with diversity in the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court decision ending affirmative action in admissions.

That ruling was also seen as a potential warning shot for other programs meant to undo effects of discrimination, and lent some urgency to the Gainey administration’s pledge to refresh the data behind race-conscious programs. Equitable law enforcement remained a work in progress, too, as a mayor elected in the wake of George Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis police didn’t immediately dent the racial skew of his own department’s activities, or make “driving while Black” a thing of the past.

Equity efforts increasingly overlap with the ongoing environmental and climate catastrophe, and nowhere is that more newsworthy than in …

A region still fueled by fossils

Pollution from coal, manufacturing and other fossil fuels continues to plague a region still trying to shrug off the nickname “Smoky City.”

After Shell Chemical Appalachia opened its giant new petrochemical plant in Beaver County, a PublicSource investigation revealed a litany of malfunctions where, in many cases, the Department of Environmental Protection largely relied on Shell to assess its own missteps and the validity of public complaints.

In October, the Biden administration announced funding for two hydrogen hubs spanning stretches of Pennsylvania, although a proposal centered around Pittsburgh did not make the cut. Opinion is fiercely split on whether hydrogen has a role in the transition to clean energy or merely extends our fossil fuel dependence.

To some, natural gas extracted through fracking offers another pathway to weaning off coal and its carbon-heavy cousins. But families living less than 900 feet from a well pad in Washington County say their health and quality of life has suffered accordingly, while state legislation to keep drilling away from homes fell flat this summer.   

Climate change and air quality are daunting big-picture problems, and if you’re yearning to feel good about humanity, it might be advisable to look at …

Spirited neighborhoods rising to challenges

If the arc of history bends toward justice, the end of that rainbow can seem elusive — but perhaps it will end in the Hill District.

The neighborhood is still wary about developer promises after witnessing one of urban renewal’s most infamous injustices when the city razed the Lower Hill District and built the Civic Arena and parking lots. But leadership at the Bethel AME Church, victimized by the wrecking ball in 1957, believe they have a pact that will partly redress that tragedy with affordable housing.

Similarly, Wilkinsburg’s population losses created both a need for redevelopment and fear of gentrification. The apparent collapse of a push to merge the borough into Pittsburgh may invite civic leaders to build on the community’s strengths.

Pittsburgh’s growth depends on its embrace of diversity and its willingness to welcome newcomers, and nowhere was that more evident than in Beechview. The South Pittsburgh neighborhood hosts the biggest concentration of Latino residents in the region, and its business district — once crippled by disinvestment and fraud — features what may be the region’s most bilingual main street.

As PublicSource enters its 13th year of writing, photographing and otherwise pursuing stories for a better Pittsburgh, there’s plenty of room for improvement — in the region and the media. Also ample is the spirit of determination to solve problems, whether they’re as concrete as the shortage of affordable housing or as intangible as equity in education. We’ll continue to seek and share truth, whether it’s in the form of professionally reported investigations or community members’ essays. We hope you’ll continue with us on that journey, and thank you for your readership and support.

Rich Lord is the managing editor at PublicSource and can be reached at rich@publicsource.org.

Jamie Wiggan is deputy editor at PublicSourceand can be reached at jamie@publicsource.org.

Fact-checked by the PublicSource staff.

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We are not defined by the media we consume, but our binge-watching (or reading) obsessions of the moment say something about who we are and where we’re heading.

The PublicSource fall 2023 intern cohort shared cultural faves — and more —  as they began a semester spent working in the newsroom. 

At PublicSource, interns are integral. Checking facts before stories are published, writing news articles, producing photos and visual packages and aiding the business team are just a few of the roles handled by the talented people who join the newsroom.

You’re already seeing the results of their work, and expect much more to come. Following their media recommendations is optional … but certainly recommended.

Read more: Winding roads led new members of PublicSource team to Pittsburgh newsroom

Tanya Babbar

recently enjoyed the second season of “The Bear” because she loves the way the show depicts dysfunctional family relationships and mental health, and she finds the characters’ stories compelling and natural. 

An editorial intern, Tanya is joining PublicSource while completing her senior year at the University of Pittsburgh with a major in English nonfiction writing and a minor in creative writing. She’s also a culture writer for The Pitt News.

In spare moments Tanya might be seen roller-skating, doodling on her sketch pad or reading on the front porch. Unless you have time to kill, don’t ask her about her cat, Jupiter, a.k.a. Juppi.

Read more: ‘We were all blindsided’: Chatham University faces multimillion-dollar budget hole, lays off staff, cuts benefits

Erin Yudt

liked the second season of the crime and mystery series “Cruel Summer” for its cast and format, which made her feel like she was investigating the case right along with the characters as each episode moves through three days.

She’s also an editorial intern and a senior, studying at Point Park University where she serves as editor-in-chief of The Globe. From Sharpsville, north of Pittsburgh, Erin has interned at The Sharon Herald and with TribLive.

Just as comfortable with cameras as she is with keyboards, Erin works for Point Park’s television show NewsNight. She’s majoring in journalism and psychology. That doesn’t leave much time for the cheesy romance novels and bad reality television she craves.

Read more: Misinformation’s antidote? Fact-checked journalism

Amaya Lobato

devoured Elliot Page’s memoir, “Pageboy,” because it is an honest, open and heart-breaking account of one of her favorite actors.

Amaya’s images are similarly unsparing, as she demonstrated during a prior, spring photojournalism internship with PublicSource. Now a junior at Pitt, she’s majoring in media and professional communication with a minor in film, while taking pictures and editing visuals for The Pitt News. Oakland and environs are a far cry from her hometown of Trujillo Alto, Puerto Rico, but she savors the different opportunities she finds in this landlocked town.

Fueled by random recipes she found online, Amaya takes every opportunity to get outside, often on a bicycle.

Read more: Shelter space around downtown Pittsburgh dwindles with another closure

Alina McMahon

saw “Barbie” in theaters — five times. Yes, she loved the movie and its message. But her appreciation was significantly heightened by its near-perfect marketing campaign.

No surprise: Alina is PublicSource’s advertising and business partnerships intern. 

She’s a Pitt marketing major, minoring in film and pursuing a certificate in leadership and ethics in her junior year. Alina is also involved in the student-run magazine Studio Four One Two, serves as the communications and editorial strategist for feminist film publication agnès films and is co-vice president of the student-run consulting firm Key Creations. She has interned at GH Advertising and Responsival.

She prefers Pittsburgh’s climate to the swelter of her hometown of Richmond, Virginia, and travels when her budget permits. She tends to overanalyze movies, so mention “Barbie” at your peril.

Read more: How 14 Italian Barbies expressed, in plastic, what my immigrant grandmother could never put into words

Photos by Stephanie Strasburg.

Rich Lord is PublicSource’s managing editor, and can be reached at rich@publicsource.org.

The post Binge what the PublicSource interns are bingeing — and then watch them change Pittsburgh journalism appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

Longtime confidential sources and hard-won insights are parts of any newsroom’s toolkit, but just as important is bringing fresh eyes to enduring issues.

PublicSource this summer has added to its team Jamie Wiggan, a deputy editor with nine years in Southwestern Pennsylvania but roots in England; health reporter Venuri Siriwardane, who has lived, studied and worked in some of the world’s great metro areas; and Stephanie Mirah, whose journey was driven by an ambition to leave this state, but also the mysterious magnetism of Pittsburgh.

“It’s just where I want to be,” said Stephanie, calling Pittsburgh “a large city but also with a sense of home.”

PublicSource inspires critical thinking and bold ideas through journalism rooted in facts, diverse voices and the pursuit of transparency, with the Pittsburgh region as its relentless focus. The newsroom needs to understand Southwestern Pennsylvania’s culture, structure, economy and politics, but also has to be able to discern the ways in which the region truly excels, differs or doesn’t measure up.

Venuri’s yardsticks include her upbringing and work in New York City and environs; study at Temple University and the London School of Economics; and research in California’s Bay Area.

“Truthfully, I never imagined I’d end up in Pittsburgh,” she said, but love for her partner, who has a Southwestern Pennsylvania family, led here.

Coming from metro areas that are extremely diverse — something the Pittsburgh region is not — she didn’t know what to expect. So far in her exploration of the region’s health issues, one characteristic stands out: openness.

“People are willing to open up to me and talk to me more than they typically have been in other places,” Venuri said. The feeling of community, the surprising ease of forging diverse friendships and the generous way people share their knowledge of the area has smoothed her transition.

Less easy: finding Sri Lankan food in Pittsburgh and a good hitting partner to develop her tennis game, she said.

With a dual background in journalism and social science research, reporting experience with the Star-Ledger of New Jersey and Inc. magazine, and communications and research chops honed in multiple markets, Venuri brings novel perspectives to the region’s many physical, mental and public health challenges. The Staunton Farm Mental Health Reporting Fellowship is supporting the coverage.

Stephanie hails from Southeastern Pennsylvania, growing up in a rural part of Chester County. Her teenage ambition: “I had always wanted to leave Pennsylvania,” she said.

While some of her high school peers went to college in Pittsburgh, Stephanie’s wanderlust took her to American University in Washington, D.C., and then to a job as a business reporter at the Post and Courier in Greenville, South Carolina. That city of 72,000 seemed a lot like home — maybe too much like Chester County — with something missing. She yearned for a different sense of community that she believes she’ll find in Pittsburgh.

As PublicSource’s audience growth and engagement producer, she’s cultivating relationships with current readers and subscribers while seeking new audiences both in person and online. 

Raised in Manchester, England, Jamie studied jazz performance at Leeds College of Music before meeting an American woman in England and emigrating. His jazz background morphed into rock drumming, and his history studies at Butler County Community College and Chatham University evolved into jobs in journalism.

Jamie wrote for, and then edited, Gazette 2.0 in McKees Rocks and moved on to the Pittsburgh City Paper before joining PublicSource as deputy editor.

Pittsburgh has been Jamie’s home for nine years now. The European echoes in the built environment made the city an immediate fit, and it grew on him from there. “Accessibility, a sense of cohesiveness and community,” he said. “They all appeal.”

They constitute a staff of 15 full-time employees, plus interns and freelance journalists who fulfill PublicSource’s mission of telling stories for a better Pittsburgh.

Jamie Wiggan can be reached at jamie@publicsource.org.

Venuri Siriwardane can be reached at venuri@publicsource.org.

Stephanie Mirah can be reached at stephaniemirah@publicsource.org.

Rich Lord is PublicSource’s managing editor and can be reached at rich@publicsource.org.

The post Winding roads led new members of PublicSource team to Pittsburgh newsroom appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

The PublicSource staff has been honored extensively for their 2022 and 2023 reporting, upholding a tradition of producing local journalism that is recognized in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and across the nation. 

While the team focuses on feedback from readers and impact of journalism as primary measures of success, we do appreciate acknowledgement in the form of awards. We thank the judges and teams who manage these contests for their time and generous feedback. 

PublicSource has received the following recognitions for our work in 2022 and 2023. This list will be updated to remain current through 2023: 

Local Media Association 2023 Digital Innovation Awards

• First place, best local website up to 250,000 unique monthly visitors
• Third place, best digital news project

A judge in the best local website contest wrote, “From deeply reported investigative pieces to charming first-person stories, spending time on PublicSource.org feels like a warm welcome to all things Pittsburgh – from the devastating to the inspiring.” 

Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute 2023 American Journalism Online Awards

• Honorable mention, best nonprofit news source

Judges noted, “PublicSource is a reliable, trusted, and authoritative source of information. The organization clearly puts the time and resources where it is most important: editing and reporting. PublicSource then presents its stories and other content clearly and directly, letting readers know what they need to know.” 

Pennsylvania Newsmedia Association 2023 Professional Keystone Media Awards

• Lenfest Institute Emerging Journalist Award for Emma Folts
• G. Richard Dew Award for Journalistic Service for The Red Zone by Emma Folts, Mila Sanina and Stephanie Strasburg
• Division 1: First Place in Feature Photo for Author Atiya Irvin-Mitchell poses for a portrait for her essay on purity culture by Stephanie Strasburg
• Division 1: Second Place in Podcast for From the Source, Season 4, episodes 1-3 by Jourdan Hicks and Liz Reid
• Division 1: Honorable Mention in Photo Story / Essay for The Red Zone by Stephanie Strasburg
• Division I: Honorable Mention in Enterprise Reporting for The Red Zone by Emma Folts, Mila Sanina and Stephanie Strasburg
• Division I: Honorable Mention in Feature Story for Validation is what one Pittsburgh Police Officer wanted from a little-used law by Rich Lord and Megan Harris (with City Cast Pittsburgh)

Pennsylvania Society for Professional Journalists 2023 Keystone Excellence in Journalism awards: 

• First place in Web Use: Daily for The Red Zone, Unbalanced and Faith, Race, Place by Natasha Vicens and the PublicSource Staff
• First Place in Graphic Photo: Daily or Non Daily The menstrual movement — a local youth perspective by Andrea Shockling
• First place in Photo Story: Daily for The Citizen Scientists of Crackerland: Armed with buckets and hunting plastic pellets, neighbors prepare for the petrol plant next door by Quinn Glabicki 
• First place in Podcasts for From the Source: Season 4, Episodes 1-3 by Jourdan Hicks and Liz Reid
• Second place in Business and Labor Reporting: Daily or Non-Daily for The Exempt Dilemma by Emma Folts, Charlie Wolfson, Punya Bhasin and Alexandra Ross
• Second place in Education Writing: Daily or Non-Daily for Draft policy would allow CMU police to use facial recognition technology by Emma Folts

Press Club of Western Pennsylvania 2023 Golden Quill Awards

• Winner in Excellence in Written Journalism, Business/Technology/Consumer Division 2 for Unbalanced by Rich Lord
• Winner in Excellence in Audio Journalism, News Feature for From the Source: Season 4, Episode 1 — Teens Changing the Rhetoric Around Youth Violence in the Pittsburgh Area by Jourdan Hicks and Liz Reid

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When journalists are portrayed on TV and movies, you typically get taken into the juicy interviews, the big discoveries, the wall of post-its and photos connecting key characters, and the furious writing of a masterpiece.

The true-story depictions glaze over a less glamorous but critical step: checking the facts.

We’re all human, even the superstar journalists breaking national and international stories at renowned news outlets. In most cases, they have teams of people helping to ensure details within the stories are accurate.

At PublicSource, we think it’s just as important to take such care in our stories about people and happenings in the Pittsburgh region. 

Though it’s been no easy feat for a news outlet our size, we’ve been fact-checking our stories for more than a decade. 

We add time to the publication process — from hours to days — to put every story we produce and publish through a fact check.

We employ three levels of fact-checking based on details of the story, like timeliness and sensitivity. At minimum, a story is fact-checked by the reporter(s) and editors. 

In most cases, our reporters are providing source material to editors and/or an independent fact-checker to verify many or all of the facts in a story.

The basic recipe of fact-checking at PublicSource is to :

• Show sourcing that helps to answer a simple, but powerful, question: “How do I know this?”
• Have someone other than the reporter comb through all of it and interrogate it.

We check basic facts like spellings and math as well as more complex matters, like interpretations of source comments or research.

Sign up to receive critical Pittsburgh reporting from PublicSource in your inbox, for free:

It doesn’t mean we’ll always be perfect despite striving to be. That’s why we have a proactive and transparent practice on corrections and clarifications, and you can find contact information for every person on staff here.

Reporters, editors, interns and freelance fact-checkers all play a part in fact-checking. It takes diligence, time and money to produce in-depth and investigative journalism and even more to get it fact-checked.

But in a world of mis/disinformation and lagging trust in media, we take great lengths to get it right for you and the region as a whole.

If you have any questions about fact-checking at PublicSource, please reach out to Editor-in-Chief Halle Stockton at halle@publicsource.org or Managing Editor Rich Lord at rich@publicsource.org.

The post Misinformation’s antidote? Fact-checked journalism appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

Some come from across the country, others are pure Pittsburgh products.

A few have graduated, while others continue to study.

Their interests range from Spanish to statistics, their hobbies from drawing to unicycling.

In fact, there is little that unites PublicSource’s intern contingent other than the decision each made to spend the summer exploring the Pittsburgh area’s issues and concerns, and sharing the fruits of those journeys with readers.

Interns are critical to PublicSource’s function and its success. Each semester, a team of interns:

• Fact-checks the work of the reporting team
• Participates in the ongoing Board Explorer transparency project
• Writes, co-authors and illustrates stories
• Adds new perspectives and great questions — many, many questions — to our tight-knit newsroom.

This year’s half-dozen-strong intern team matches in size the largest in PublicSource’s 11-year history. And it takes a back seat to none in terms of its breadth of interests and the variety of its inspirations.

The summer 2023 intern files:

Alexandra Ross

• PublicSource role: Editorial intern
• Main focus: Local government, politics
• From: Philadelphia suburbs
• Academic status: Recent graduate
• College: University of Pittsburgh
• Area(s) of study: English writing, Spanish and education
• Other notable experience: The Pitt News reporter and assistant news editor, Pittsburgh magazine intern
• Extracurriculars: Loves discovering new music and is trying to read more books and less Twitter.
• Fictional character who most resonates, and why: Jo March from “Little Women,” because she’s outspoken, imaginative and independent, a major tomboy during her childhood, and can totally lose herself in reading and writing.

Alexis Wary

• PublicSource role: Photojournalism intern
• Main focus: Documenting Pittsburgh via images
• From: Sunbury (Northumberland County)
• Academic status: Recent graduate
• College: Point Park University
• Area(s) of study: Journalism and photography
• Other notable experience: Point Park Globe photographer and writer, current communications and marketing intern at The Pittsburgh Foundation, studied abroad at the University of Salford in Manchester, UK.
• Extracurriculars: Enjoys music, analog film photography, finding delicious food spots and reading.
• Fictional character who most resonates, and why: A cross between Miss Honey from Roald Dahl’s “Matilda” (she’s overly caring and thoughtful) and Kat Stratford from “10 Things I Hate About You” (she loves feminist punk music and doesn’t care what people think about her).

Elizabeth Szeto

• PublicSource role: Data storytelling intern
• Main focus: Public safety and anything with data
• From: Cupertino, Calif.
• Academic status: Junior
• College: Carnegie Mellon University
• Area(s) of study: Statistics, machine learning and human-computer interaction
• Other notable experience: Researched use of data tools to quantitatively characterize ultrasound images for disease diagnosis at Stanford University.
• Extracurriculars: Enjoys watching K-dramas, exploring new music and drawing.
• Fictional character who most resonates, and why: Charlie Brown, for his dedication to what he loves, admirable sense of optimism and persistence as he struggles with anxieties and does the best he can.

Lucas Dufalla

• PublicSource role: Editorial intern
• Main focus: Economic development, housing
• From: East Liberty
• Academic status: Senior
• College: Bowdoin College
• Area(s) of study: History
• Other notable experience: Writes for the school’s student-run The Bowdoin Orient, worked for the Portland Press Herald.
• Extracurriculars: Runs through Highland Park and takes photos on his camera.
• Fictional character who most resonates, and why: Tom Haverford from “Parks and Rec,” because he’s goofy but well-meaning, with over-the-top quirks but infectious happiness and passion.

Riley Green

• PublicSource role: Audience growth intern
• Main focus: Building the PublicSource community
• From: San Francisco
• Academic status: Junior
• College: Carnegie Mellon University
• Area(s) of study: International relations and francophone studies
• Other notable experience: Research assistant to professor working to compile the first ever database compiling the research of Black academics and creatives.
• Extracurriculars:  Exploring Pittsburgh on walks with friends and WORDLE aficionado! 
• Fictional character who most resonates, and why: Elizabeth Bennet from “Pride & Prejudice.” She’s an independent thinker who challenges societal norms, holds strong moral values, and is open-minded.

Sean Lord

• PublicSource role: Volunteer data infrastructure intern
• Main focus: Building newsgathering tools
• From: Brookline
• Academic status: Junior
• College: University of Pittsburgh
• Area(s) of study: Computer science and data science
• Other notable experience: Volunteered for Southwestern Veterans’ Center, previously made a scraping tool for Public Source
• Extracurriculars:  Unicycling or biking around Pittsburgh and playing online chess.
• Fictional character who most resonates, and why: Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz from Phineas and Ferb. Like Dr. Doofenshmirtz, I spend most of my time building -inators, only for them to be deemed unusable by my Perry the Platypus, updated website designs.

Photos by Stephanie Strasburg, except Riley Green, which was provided courtesy of Riley Green.

Rich Lord is PublicSource’s managing editor, and can be reached at rich@publicsource.org.

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PublicSource will have two executive directors effective next week, in a move approved by the nonprofit newsroom’s board of directors and expected to enhance the organization’s vibrancy and resilience, and to preserve the independence of the reporting and business sides.

Jennie Liska will become executive director for revenue and operations, while Halle Stockton serves as executive director and editor-in-chief.

“Here we are with two of the best leaders that PublicSource has ever had,” Ted Anthony, the president of PublicSource’s Board of Directors, told the staff during a meeting Monday. “We have two people who have done incredible work for a number of years in their respective realms.”

Stockton was one of the first reporters hired by PublicSource 11 years ago, after beginning her career at the Sarasota Herald-Tribune in Florida. She rose to be managing editor and, starting last year, editor-in-chief. 

Liska spent 13 years working in management and technology consulting. She was a member of the PublicSource board from 2016 through 2018, before joining the staff and taking charge of revenue generation, relationship development and internal business operations.

PublicSource has been without a CEO since January, and prior to last year it always had a single executive director.

Liska and Stockton brought the board the concept of two executive directors, and one of the board’s two vice presidents, Jeff Galak, researched the concept.

“This is actually an unusual model — but not an unheard-of one — in the nonprofit space,” Galak told the staff. He reached out to three organizations that use the two-executive director structure, and all spoke highly of its power to instill a culture of teamwork, compromise and resilience.

“This was seen as a positive direction for nonprofits, and importantly for us as a board, it was seen as a positive direction for PublicSource,” Galak said.

Anthony added that having two executive directors formalizes the important separation of editorial decisions from revenue considerations.

The board was unanimous in its enthusiasm for the model and the personnel who will lead it, said Anthony and Galak.

“After 11 years at PublicSource, I couldn’t be more thrilled to take on a co-leadership position and remain at the helm of this ambitious and talented newsroom,” said Stockton. “Together, Jennie and I will work to ensure that PublicSource continues to evolve and meet the needs of the Pittsburgh region through innovative journalistic endeavors accomplished with integrity and care.”

“I am honored to have the opportunity to co-lead PublicSource, with a focus on making sure that our journalists have the resources to continue telling important, authentic and creative stories about Pittsburgh and the region,” said Liska. “I look forward to partnering with Halle and the PublicSource team on the exciting projects to come. We both encourage any community members who have thoughts about our work to get in touch.”

PublicSource, founded in 2011, grew from a project within Pittsburgh Filmmakers to an independent nonprofit with a full-time staff of 14. The organization is guided by a board including veterans of media, marketing, technology, education, medicine, law, human resources, finance and communications.

“I believe this co-lead structure will allow bandwidth for necessary focus on all of the important aspects of this organization, our team and PublicSource’s future,” Stockton added. “It also fits squarely into our organization’s core values of furthering collaboration and equity.”
Rich Lord is PublicSource’s managing editor and can be reached at rich@publicsource.org.

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Long gone are the days when journalists could learn reporting skills and nothing else.

These days a reporter covering government needs to understand data science. Education news blends with cultural trends. Environmental coverage is deeply climatological. Law is everywhere.

The upshot: Anyone interested in reporting, as a career, would be wise to cultivate a second area of expertise or interest. 

PublicSource’s spring 2023 intern class has that covered. The four students joining our professional news staff this semester are invested in better informing Pittsburgh, but each one brings other areas of study, interests and hobbies to the practice of reporting.

That can only help, as they work through a rigorous immersion in our fact-based reporting process.

Interns typically start by fact-checking the work of other reporters. That gives them a look at the interviews, documents and data that underlie PublicSource’s enterprise journalism.

Writing interns are also immersed in Board Explorer, a transparency portal that gives the people of Pittsburgh and Allegheny County a look at the compositions of 60 important boards which make decisions on everything from air quality to zoning.

Interns also regularly author or co-author stories or photo essays on issues of civic importance. Those stories are typically informed by the life experiences, interests and raw curiosity they bring to the newsroom.

Here are the students joining us this spring:

Dakota Castro-Jarrett is a second-year student at Northeastern University in Boston, studying journalism and cultural anthropology. Born and raised in Pittsburgh, Dakota has written for his school’s independent student newspaper The Huntington News, his school’s music magazine Tastemakers, as well as writing a 2021 essay for PublicSource. He begins his internship pursuing stories focused on education and politics. During his free time he enjoys listening to music and exploring all the local oddities in the Pittsburgh area. Contact: dakota@publicsource.org

Betul Tuncer is a junior at the University of Pittsburgh majoring in media and professional communications and legal studies with a certificate in digital media. A longtime Pittsburgh resident, Betul has worked at The Pitt News for three years, taking on positions of staff writer, assistant news editor and most recently managing editor. She has an interest in writing and storytelling and hopes to pursue a career in journalism. When she’s not working to grow her experience in journalism, Betul enjoys reading, visiting museums and taking photos with 35mm film. Contact: betul@publicsource.org

Amaya Lobato-Rivas, a visuals intern, is a second-year student at the University of Pittsburgh majoring in media and professional communication and minoring in film and media studies. Originally from Trujillo Alto, Puerto Rico, Amaya uses photography to connect with the people around her, both strangers and loved ones. As much as she enjoys island life, Amaya appreciates Pittsburgh and the photographic opportunities it has to offer. Aside from her personal photo projects, she is a photographer for The Pitt News, and freelanced for PublicSource before her internship. When she’s not taking pictures, Amaya enjoys nature walks, making playlists on Spotify and watching rom-coms. Contact: amaya@publicsource.org

Kalilah Stein is a freshman at Pittsburgh Science and Technology Academy [SciTech] in the Pittsburgh Public School District. She has lived her whole life in Pittsburgh and seen both its beauties and issues firsthand. Focused on fact-checking for PublicSource, she hopes to help work toward a better Pittsburgh and pursue a career in journalism. In her free time she enjoys reading, painting and exploring the city. Contact: kalilah@publicsource.org

Rich Lord is PublicSource’s managing editor. He can be reached at rich@publicsource.org.

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No matter who or where you are in the Pittsburgh region, when you visit publicsource.org, we want you to find something to help you live better. We know that’s not an easy feat in such a diverse, fragmented and complex region. 

If we are to do meaningful, in-depth journalism, showing the richness and fullness of our communities is critical.

We know that media outlets sometimes get it wrong. Community members have told us that.  We’ve witnessed it. At a recent listening session, several participants of color simply asked the media to recognize they are people who lead regular lives. What a straightforward request that many media entities have failed at for so long.

To create journalism that gives people information to make better, informed decisions and live better lives, we must embrace all communities. That’s why it’s vital to do work that embraces communities of color and other oft-marginalized groups. 

Building bridges is hard, and media sometimes resists evolution. But we are committed to charting a path for equitable, inclusive local journalism that represents our community. As the Pittsburgh region’s media landscape shifts with changes in our society, PublicSource is ready to cover the news you care about. 

With the help of the American Press Institute, we’ve reinvigorated our plans to better connect with communities of color and other traditionally marginalized populations.  

This past year, PublicSource participated in a project with the American Press Institute dedicated to transforming how local newsrooms connect with communities of color. We went on this journey with four other newsrooms: Pittsburgh City Paper, the Tribune-Review, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Pitt News.

As part of this project, we invited API into our newsroom. They interviewed each member of our staff. They reviewed our articles. They interviewed community members. Then, they told us what they found. Some of it was disheartening. Much of it we knew. All of it we’re working to address, fortunately now with strong guidance and support.

API found common themes across the five newsrooms surveyed, including lack of diversity among reporters and editors and heavy workloads that can lead to burnout.

For many reasons, as documented by studies, Pittsburgh media struggles with inclusive and diverse practices both inside and outside of its newsrooms. 

We see the API project as a powerful opportunity to collaborate alongside our media peers to achieve more diverse, reflective news coverage. 

Our newsroom is uniquely positioned in Pittsburgh. We’re open-minded, nimble, digital and people-funded. Much of this is reflected in the results of API’s review. As a small team, we work collaboratively to produce regular in-depth journalism, but the workload can lead our team to burnout. We’ve formed an audience engagement team to further our mission to connect with the community, but it’s taken time to build the foundation and formalize the processes needed to take our audience engagement to the next level.

While some of API’s takeaways captured more challenging parts of our ongoing work, we’re optimistic that much of the evaluation was aligned with our longstanding internal goals. 

Opening our newsroom up to inspection and absorbing the evaluations has led us to further define our commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging efforts.

You’ll see it in action in (at least) these ways:

Asset mapping

Ours is a city of many neighborhoods. It’s full of places where connection is building and people are working to move their communities forward. All PublicSource employees will work together to build maps of the people and places creating positive momentum in communities. These maps will inform our work, help us understand our knowledge gaps, and deepen our knowledge of a community and the issues impacting its residents. To start, we’re charting a path to engagement in three newsroom-selected neighborhoods: Wilkinsburg, Beechview and Perry South. We plan to show up in communities to strike up conversations with residents that could shape our understanding of local communities and coverage of their issues.

Community advisory group

We’re firm on wanting to build a two-way street that allows us regular, honest dialogue about current events, issues and media coverage in the Pittsburgh region. Feedback is a gift. Our efforts include forming a community advisory group of diverse members from all sections of the region to inform our staff, our newsroom coverage and our engagement efforts through regular feedback. We plan to pilot the group later this year.

DEIB infrastructure

Although internal, we expect this long-term commitment will continue to move our organization in the direction of being reflective of the communities we serve and employing best practices for interaction with people of all identities, experiences and backgrounds.

Among other initiatives, we will be formalizing diversity tracking of job candidates, interns and staffers to better analyze our ability to retain and attract diverse talent. We must do this in a way that is inclusive and allows people to self-identify as they wish, so we are researching best practices. 

This year is also the first that we are working with each member of the team to find a mentor outside of PublicSource. We want each person to use this opportunity in a way that is best for them — be it for issues of well-being to specific skills to overall career development. We want our team to know we see and care for them as whole people and that work-life balance is a priority.

The post PublicSource details 3-part plan to deepen connections with communities of color appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

PublicSource CEO Eric Zack has left the news organization, its board of directors said Monday. 

Ted Anthony, the board president, described Zack’s departure after nine months as a personnel matter and declined to provide details.

“We’re very glad to have had him and thank him very much for the time that he spent here,” Anthony said.

Zack, who began as CEO in May, did not comment Monday. PublicSource will be led in an interim capacity by its editor-in-chief, Halle Stockton, and director of revenue and operations, Jennie Liska.

Zack’s departure does not reflect any financial weakness at the organization, board member Zak Thomas said. Anthony added that the decision will not impact the organization’s mission or the journalism it provides readers.

Board members did not say when they expect to hire a new leader or what the search process will entail, but they said that a board meeting was scheduled for Monday night to begin discussion of that topic. 

Zack joined PublicSource after working as director of university relations at The Conversation, a nonprofit independent news organization. He was PublicSource’s first CEO.

Prior to Zack’s arrival, Mila Sanina served for five years as executive director. She left to focus on her well-being and has subsequently worked as a professor and as a freelance writer for PublicSource, among other roles.

Following Sanina’s departure, Stockton and Liska led PublicSource on an interim basis, as they are now.

Stockton has served as PublicSource’s editor-in-chief since May. Prior to that, she served as managing editor for seven years, and before that as a reporter for PublicSource for three years and for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune in Florida for four years. 

Liska has served as PublicSource’s director of revenue and operations since 2018. She builds corporate and community relationships to support the growth of PublicSource. She previously spent 13 years working in management and technology consulting. She also served on PublicSource’s Board of Directors from 2016 to 2018.

PublicSource, founded in 2011, grew from a project within Pittsburgh Filmmakers to an independent nonprofit with a full-time staff of 15. The organization is guided by a 14-member board of directors including veterans of media, marketing, technology, education, medicine, law, human resources, finance and communications.

Board members said Monday that as they chart the organization’s path forward, they hope to grow their own ranks to between 15 and 20 and become more diverse as a body to “represent all of Pittsburgh.” 

Those interested in joining the board can read about its role and apply here.

Charlie Wolfson is PublicSource’s local government reporter and a Report for America corps member. He can be reached at charlie@publicsource.org or at @chwolfson on Twitter.

Rich Lord is PublicSource’s managing editor. He can be reached at rich@publicsource.org.

The post PublicSource CEO departs appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.