Confirming The P-G's Right-Wing Swing

From today's P-G:

John Robinson Block, publisher and editor-in-chief of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, on Monday named Keith Burris as its executive editor effective immediately.

This is the same Keith Burris who, three days after John Robinson Block's drunken behavior did this:

PG publisher John Robinson Block has entered the newsroom for the first time since his Saturday night tirade. He was accompanied by PG editorial director Keith Burris.

— Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh 🗞 (@PGNewsGuild) February 13, 2019

This is the same day Block Communications gaslighted (or at least tried to) Block's drunken behavior as an "unfortunate exchange" that some may have "misconstrued."

By the way, yesterday, the same day Burris was announced as second in command at the P-G, the Newspaper Guild released yet another eyewitness account of Block's drunken behavior.

This makes five?

There are a few more horrifying details to be learned in the account. For example how physical it was:

When [Block's daughter] declined to join him at the sign, he moved with the swiftness of a martial arts master, really, and closed the gap of two steps between them in one motion while simultaneously thrusting his forearm and elbow at her forehead. He stopped just as quickly about a foot from her eyes and did not strike her, but it looked like might at any moment. With his right forearm parallel to her forehead and clinched fist, he said, in a hushed but forceful tone, “You are a Block! You need to be in the picture!”

I was stunned by the physical attack on this frail child who, at that point, had still managed to maintain her composure, although I was behind him so I could not see her face because his right forearm in his suit sleeve was blocking my view.

And then, after insulting the girl's mother this happened:

He grabbed her by the right arm and dragged her in front of the sign. She pleaded not to be in the picture, saying over and over again: “No, please, I don’t want to be in the picture. No, please, no!”

He was forcefully pulling her and she was trying to resist as she was facing me, leaning as far away from him as she could while begging: “No, please, please, please, no!” Her right hand disappeared into the arm of her coat as she tried to pull away, but he yanked the coat arm in the opposite direction toward the sign. It was a tug of war and her body was the rope.

At that point, I made two exposures.

Oh. My. God. There are pictures - taken by a news photographer.

That's what the Blocks called "an unfortunate exchange" that may have been "misconstrued" into something regrettable.

And those are the people installing Keith Burris, who accompanied the sober(?) John Robinson Block a few days later back to the scene of the drunken assault as second in command at the P-G.

A few minutes after the announcement of Burris' installation yesterday, Burris himself sent a letter to everyone in the newsroom (at least I am assuming it's everyone in the newsroom - the address list is yuge) his own self-introduction. It started with this:

Dear colleagues,

Considering the responsibilities of this job, I went to my notebook at 4AM and wrote a sort of mantra for myself: Five commandments, if you will.

Be calm

Be kind

Remember that we all want the same thing – a great newspaper.

Foster professionalism and good will

DO YOUR JOB

Does anyone else see that last "commandment" (the one in ALL CAPS) as a threat to the workers in that newsroom? Anyone? Or is it just me?

By the way, how many of these "commandments" did John Robinson Block break when he was manhandling his frightened daughter and threatening to burn down the P-G in a drunken rage?

Anyway, Charlie Deitch sums up the reaction to Burris' control of both the news and editorial wings of the P-G:

That’s a shame because as journalists, we are supposed to work as watchdogs. But that’s going to be hard to do now that John Block’s lapdog is in charge.

Word from inside the P-G is that that it won't be Burris' who's in charge. Let's extend the metaphor with a question: If Burris is a lapdog, who holds the other end of the leash?

John Robinson Block - the drunken offender of journalistic integrity who manhandled his own daughter one Saturday night a few weeks ago at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Oh yea and he's a yuge Trump fan. Let's not forget that.