Post Gazette Editorial Board Breaks Faith With PBC Blog

The Pittsburgh Post Gazette newspaper should make it official. It’s time to change their name to the Worst Newspaper Website in the Civilized World.

That’s how it feels little more than a month after the PBC Blog was traded for a cut rate sometimes it works, sometimes it gives you a white screen (after asking its customer to log in for the third time before sending us to a subscribe screen again.)

The paper’s most successful blog which began in one form or another three years ago was dispatched to a pay only “Plus” site a while back and it worked religiously well.   Then trouble began, trouble which the PG knew about and failed to share, and the (Pittsburgh Baseball Club) PBC Blog hasn’t been the same since.  All sorts of excuses, patches, and attempts have been made. 

Let me get this straight:  I don’t care.

I don’t want my money back. 

I don’t want anything,  except what was paid for, the best coverage of Pirates baseball I can get my eyes on each day. 

Perhaps over the past several years if the “editorial board” had spent its’ time in a more focused manner it would all be different now.  Maybe topics such as how the newspaper would adapt in the coming years to new technology should have been discussed.  Instead the “editorial board” spent time writing letters to the Pittsburgh Pirates about what they were doing.

The Post Gazette editorial board accused Bob Nutting and his ownership of salary dumping in numerous letters.  (Each letter was more hilarious than the last one which is why we copied their style for this garbage post.)

So as a customer of PG+ we feel the Post Gazette is performing a dump of their own.  The PG is dumping on their newest customers.  It is another perfect example of how not to survive in the world of new media.   Here is how it looks to me:  take my money for expanded content and an online shared community of Pirates fans. I did that happily.  But then the service is interuppted and returns as something different and nearly impossible to fully enjoy as we once did.   So you failed to deliver what we paid for, in the manner we like to view it which upsets customers in any business.  That’s nothing new.

Newspaper apologists will defend the paper with some sort of excuse about technology deficiencies, or increased users.  Whatever it is, it’s the typical –we aren’t getting it done excuse.

But this affront to its customers hurt because of more than any of that.

The Post Gazette pledged to provide a consistent product. And after fans of the blog paid up, the commitments seem to have been thrown out the window.  Seriously–an oil spill in the ocean was fixed faster than the Post Gazette’s Pittsburgh Baseball Club (PBC) blog.

This assurance from Jerry Micco rings hollow with the PG+ crowd, who were the PG’s partner in building this revenue source for one of America’s best newspapers.  A month later the blog portion of the newspaper’s website still has yet to measure up, while each day someone says the same thing, we’re working on it, we’re working on it.

You don’t build a great blog with a revolving door of IT equipment. You don’t take people’s money and then send little messages which tell them to email you.  Wait…,well…apparently you do.

It’s time the Pittsburgh Post Gazette had ownership worthy of the teams. Mark Cuban, where are you?

You can follow us on Twitter or send us an email and we will give you a refund.

SOME PEOPLE DIDN’T GET THE JOKE, READ THIS ARTICLE AND IT WILL MAKE SENSE.  TO THE REST OF YOU, THANKS FOR YOUR SENSE OF HUMOR

Clipped from: www.post-gazette.com (share this clip)