'I Will Destroy You': The Battle Inside a Midwestern Media Dynasty

The editor in chief and publisher of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Toledo Blade, John Robinson had recently requested financial records for the family company, Block Communications. He and the board were interested in establishing a valuation of the media business with the aim of potentially selling it. "I will destroy you," Allan, the company's chief executive, told his brother, according to a court filing from John Robinson. Allan didn't want to sell because he felt the timing was poor and believed he was being frozen out of the decision-making process. In an interview, Allan denied threatening his brother and said he treated him with affection. The pressures of running a regional media empire in an era of changing consumer tastes, corporate consolidation and a prolonged labor battle have taken a toll. Block, a Toledo, Ohio-based media company that traces its roots back to 1900, is now a family business divided. The twins no longer talk to each other, said Allan, and what happens next is uncertain. "I think we'll likely be a seller at some point," said Allan, now 71. "That was never what I wanted. It's not what my father, grandfather or uncle wanted." The Blocks aren't as well-known as the Grahams, who once owned the Washington Post, or the Chandlers, past owners of the Los Angeles Times. But their plight is a familiar one. Their family fortune started with newspapers. Then came TV stations, cable systems and a telecommunications company. Now businesses that once printed money are in decline. The brothers each own 25% of Block's voting shares, while family trusts hold the remainder. Block sold its TV station broadcast group to Gray Media last summer for $80 million, pending regulatory approval. Allan said it had become too difficult for a company his size to negotiate network programming agreements. The company closed the Pittsburgh City Paper, an alternative weekly, in December, citing financial concerns. (It was subsequently sold to a new nonprofit owner.) And after a bitter three-year strike at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette over wages and healthcare benefits, the family said in January that the paper will cease publication in May. Allan told The Wall Street Journal recently that there are interested buyers for the Post-Gazette's assets "and we are going to pursue all angles." Otherwise, it is set to cut all 171 employees. Block Communications generated $396 million in revenue in 2025, excluding broadcast revenue, down 10% from the prior year. Promising beginnings Paul Block, a German immigrant who proved an astute advertising executive, launched Block Communications in New York in 1900. William McKinley was president, Bell Telephone counted fewer than 900,000 phones nationwide, and the Carnegies and Mellons were expanding their fortunes in Pittsburgh. Paul eventually operated a portfolio of newspapers stretching across the country. Babe Ruth once visited the Toledo Blade headquarters, tossing signed baseballs from a balcony to adoring crowds below. Paul was "one of the most gregarious playboys in New York City," according to biographer Frank Brady, author of "The Publisher," and Paul and William Randolph Hearst were regulars at New York nightclubs. Their friendship led to the creation of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 1927, through an exchange of properties intended to help them both succeed in the same market. Block published his newspaper in the morning while Hearst published an afternoon option. Paul pared his holdings after the 1929 stock market crash and the Depression that followed. But he retained ownership of his papers in Pittsburgh and Toledo. Under the second generation -- Paul Block Jr. and brother William Block -- Block Communications expanded into cable with the launch of what is now Buckeye Broadband. Paul Jr., the father of the twins, was a chemist, co-publisher of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Toledo Blade, and a reclusive figure, according to an interview that John Robinson gave to the Pittsburgh Quarterly in 2018. He also called his father "a truly brilliant person." William, co-publisher of both papers, was a social leader in Pittsburgh and immensely popular in the Post-Gazette newsroom. "He'd stand at the end of the line in his own cafeteria and people would say, 'Go to the front,' and he'd say, 'No, I'm not cutting in line,'" said Tony Norman, a former Post-Gazette columnist. "I can't overestimate how important that was." Veteran staff photographer Steve Mellon recalls seeing William sitting at lunch with his print crew, eating a cheese sandwich with tomato soup. "It was a different era and a different leadership," he said. Rising tensions Over the course of their careers, Allan focused on the cable, TV and telecom operations and said he has long overseen the business side of the newspapers. John Robinson served as editor in chief and publisher of both newspapers. Relations between the papers' staff and management soured. Instead of cheese sandwiches and tomato soup, John Robinson's presence at the Post-Gazette is widely remembered for a newsroom visit one Saturday night in February 2019, with his young daughter in tow. He conducted a "drunken 'rampage' in which he demeaned and threatened staff and caused property damage inside the newsroom," Allan alleged in a 2024 court filing. The paper's union -- which at that point had been without a contract since 2017 -- published multiple eyewitness accounts and said he threatened to fire certain staffers. Block Communications issued a statement soon after, saying John Robinson "expressed his frustration to the newsroom staff about several issues of concern to him." It added that the publisher regretted his conduct "and did not intend his actions to upset anyone." John Robinson didn't respond to requests for comment. In a city that columnist Norman described as "a beer-and-shot town, a town where deals are made with handshakes at a bar," the Blocks and the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh couldn't find common ground. Post-Gazette journalists launched a strike in late 2022. It stretched on for more than three years, with union members struggling financially. "It was very personal for us, so we made it personal for them," said Andrew Goldstein, a Post-Gazette reporter and president of the guild. When John Robinson remarried in late 2022, his guests at the Duquesne Club in downtown Pittsburgh were greeted with an inflatable rat. Carty Finkbeiner, a former three-time Toledo mayor who has known the Block family for decades, recalls one of the protesters giving him the finger at the party. "I gave it back," he said. Allan was caught on video in 2022 using a takeout bag to swat at a union supporter who surprised him at a rest stop. Allan initially appeared willing to engage, but grew irate when he realized he was being videotaped. "Oh f -- - you," he said, swinging the paper bag. He later told the Journal his privacy had been invaded. A paper in decline and a family divided On Jan. 7 of this year, the Supreme Court denied a stay of a lower court's decision that mandated a return to a previous union healthcare plan. Hours after the ruling, the Blocks said they would close the paper. The Post-Gazette lost more than $350 million over the last 20 years, according to the family, while combined revenue there and at the Toledo Blade fell by 87% during the same period. In that time, close to 3,500 newspapers have closed, according to a report by Northwestern University's Medill Local News Initiative. And ad-revenue pressure from cord-cutting, along with higher content costs, are driving a flurry of TV-industry mergers, affecting other portions of Block's business. When certain family members, including John Robinson, began to explore a potential company sale, Allan in May 2024 filed a breach-of-contract suit in a local Ohio court. Soon after, the Block Communications board removed Allan as CEO and chairman. John Robinson contested Allan's allegations, saying in his own court filing that his brother was preventing the company from realizing its full value. Each accused the other side of putting personal interests above those of the company. Allan was reinstated a few months later as CEO, but not as chairman, as part of a settlement. Allan says he regrets holding out so long before selling the TV stations. And he laments the frayed ties with John Robinson. "I would like to have a relationship with my brother," he said. "It's awful."