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I'm Jim Crutchfield, the president of the PublicSource Board of Directors. Born in McKeesport, I grew up in Pittsburgh’s Hill District and lived in a lot of other places, but I called Pittsburgh home no matter where I moved. I love Pittsburgh.
I didn't grow up blind to Pittsburgh's inequities, however. The night my mother, my two brothers and I arrived in our new hometown I saw a big hole in the ground where the Lower Hill District used to be. The hole was where the now razed Civic Arena would go. The poor people who'd lived there were scattered. Our little broken family moved into the Bedford Dwellings housing projects in the middle Hill District.
From the beginnings of what would become PublicSource, I've been a supporter. Pittsburgh is someplace special, but the city and region around it won't fulfill their potential until the social and economic gaps are closed or at least narrowed significantly. The great tragedy of Pittsburgh's glorious rise out of the detritus of steel's decline is it remains a city socially and economically divided.
I started a long journalism career here, and I've never stopped believing fine journalism can make a difference. It is the cornerstone of a healthy democracy. But, it only works if there are newsrooms like PublicSource to dig deep and report with integrity.
Please join me in supporting PublicSource right now, when every dollar you and I give will be matched by a dollar from NewsMatch 2019.
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