• by Ray Schultz , July 31, 2023

Pittsburgh Incline, a news product launched in 2016, has laid off its last journalist, Colin Williams, and is operating on reduced frequency. 

For the moment, “the orange-and-white newsletter looks the same,” writes Pittsburgh journalist Brian Conway. “But it’s now delivered two days a week, down from four, and there’s a clear difference between the newsletters written by Williams and the briefer, unbylined link wraps shared in the newsletter now.” 

The Incline was largely funded by Gannett at the start to the tune of $2.6 million, Conroy reports. 

Whereby.Us, a for-profit news network, purchased The Incline from Spirited Media in 2019. Whereby.Us is now producing the product inhouse using Letterhead software, Conroy continues. 

One of Spirited Media’s other sites, Philadelphia’s Billy Penn, was purchased by WHYY, and its Denverite site was acquired by Colorado Public Media. 

The Incline’s online archives from its Spirited Media days were not preserved, Conway adds. 

But former Incline director Rossilynne Skena Culgan argues that “Pittsburghers truly craved the wit, snark, sass and dogged reporting that The Incline was founded upon, and I’m sad that it no longer exists in that way.”