The Toledo Blade, long a leading news source in northwest Ohio and parts of southeast Michigan, is set to close at the end of this year if its owners can't find a buyer.

An executive with owner Block Communications informed staff in an email Tuesday morning about the plan to explore a sale and, if that fails, publish a final edition on Dec. 31, The Blade reported. The executive, Jodi Miehls, called it an "extremely difficult decision," but said the paper's ongoing financial losses "are simply not sustainable." The Blade has 119 employees.

Earlier this year, Block Communications similarly announced the possible closure of its other large newspaper, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, before a nonprofit stepped in to purchase it at the last minute.

Newspapers around the country including in Michigan continue to face difficult business headwinds. MLive Media Group last week announced it would stop printing its eight Michigan papers in December, for instance, though all will continue online, where the company said most of its readers have now migrated.

The email to Blade staff said both print and digital publication will cease at the end of the year without a buyer. The Blade was founded in 1835 and is the city's oldest continually operating business, serving a broad region in recent decades that stretched throughout northwest Ohio and into parts of Michigan including Monroe County.

The Block family took over the paper a century ago, and it has continued to be overseen by John Robinson Block, the publisher and editor-in-chief, and his twin brother Allan Block. For much of its history, the paper published a print edition seven days a week but now prints only Thursday and Sunday editions.

The Blocks also had owned the Post-Gazette since the 1920s, before a nonprofit called the Venetoulis Institute for Local Journalism bought the publication. That nonprofit owns the media startup Baltimore Banner.

Blade staff have mostly worked from home since the spring after departing the historic downtown building that long housed the newsroom and other departments.

The closure announcement follows a late-August vote by employees represented by the News Media Guild to reject a proposed contract. In a statement, the Toledo NewsGuild said after the 46-25 vote that the proposed deal had allowed too much flexibility for the company to "outsource work to AI, freelancers, managers" or other sources. It later said the proposal would have also cut workers' severance in half and reduced seniority.

The two sides returned to the bargaining table late last week with the union offering a further compromise, the NewsGuild said in a Tuesday statement after the closure announcement. It said the Block Communications board met the next day, setting up Tuesday's announcement to sell or shutter the paper.

"It's disappointing that Block Communications would rather shutter the paper than work toward an equitable contract," said Lillian King, a Blade features writer and the Toledo NewsGuild's bargaining chair, in a statement. She said signing the contract "would have meant signing away our self-respect, and with it, Toledo's mandate for ethical journalism."

Blade workers "would welcome new ownership" and the union "would look forward to working with any such prospective buyers," added Mac Arnold, the Guild president.

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