Efforts to create the Pittsburgh Media Partnership began in late 2019 and by January 2020 the organization launched with 20 founding partners representing a diverse range of audiences. The early buy-in brought together competitors in a local market to work on a shared enterprise project together. Some editors who had worked in the city for decades met each other for the first time and began sharing information and discussing the impact of their coverage on Pittsburgh.

The Partnership receives significant financial contributions from two sources — the Hillman Foundation and The Heinz Endowments. Since its inception in 2020, the Partnership has consistently had approximately 20 members, even as some organizations have left and others have replaced them: Several original outlets left because they said they did not have the resources for collaborative work; other new ones have joined such as Pittsburgh Magazine, the Pittsburgh Institute for Nonprofit Journalism and The Northside Chronicle. We currently have 23 active partners that include large organizations such as Pittsburgh Community Broadcasting Corp., Trib Total Media and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, as well as community outlets such as Gazette 2.0 in McKees Rocks. In addition, these news outlets serve audiences that are diverse by race, ethnicity, religion, geography, sexual orientation and sexual identity.