Some UPMC hospitals are banning the sale of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in their gift shops, a decision UPMC spokesman Paul Wood said was precipitated by "fairness issues" in the newspaper's coverage and portrayal of the Pittsburgh-based health system, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
At least three of the system's hospitals — UPMC Shadyside, UPMC Mercy and Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC — will no longer sell the newspaper.
John Robinson Block, the publisher of the newspaper, defended the way it represents UPMC: "The Post-Gazette is edited without regard to any special interest, and our news columns are not for sale, at any price. We have been here since 1786, and have as our purpose the same goal that UPMC was established for — to serve the public's interest, not a narrow purpose.''
UPMC has canceled its advertising in the Post-Gazette, pointing to dissatisfaction with the way UPMC was covered in its news and portrayed in its editorials and editorial cartoons. In recent years, the health system has most often criticized the newspaper regarding its coverage of the ongoing conflict with insurer Highmark. Previously, it was the Post-Gazette's coverage of UPMC's real-estate holdings and business practices, according to the report.
"We believe that our coverage of UPMC has been fair-minded in every respect," said David M. Shribman, executive editor of the Post-Gazette. "Every entity in every town feels aggrieved at some point by what a good newspaper writes. It's part of living in a free society where the exchange of news and information is prized, not punished.''
UPMC provided us with the following statement Mr. Wood gave during an interview with KDKA Radio: "You know, UPMC has always treated the Post-Gazette fairly over the years, and we've shared breaking news with them, we've granted exclusive interviews with our physicians and researchers and executives, we've worked with them hand in hand on some clinical stories. But I don't think any objective observer will say that PG has treated UPMC with the same level of fairness. There has been a number of very vitriolic editorials, a number of very insensitive cartoons that glorify violence. All of this editorial bent of the Post-Gazette has actually bled over into their news coverage. We're now seeing slanted news coverage where they're giving prominence to negative UPMC stories and they're all but ignoring stories varying stories that may reflect negatively on UPMC competition.
"So, the PG can do whatever it wants. We support their right to do that 100 percent. They can write whatever they want and have whatever opinion they want. All we're saying is we don't have to support it and we don't have to pay for it. We don’t have to support the PG by advertising in it, we don't have to support it by helping them sell inaccurate and biased reporting in our hospitals. It can do whatever it wants. We're fine with that. We just don't have to supply the money to buy the ink to disparage us."