Michael M. Santiago, a Black photographer for the newspaper, said he was banned from protest coverage for the same reason. He has accepted a buyout and is resigning from the publication.

“I hate to be departing under these circumstances but it is necessary,” he wrote on Twitter. “How can I work for someone that doesn’t love me.”

Update on my situation. Thank you #Pittsburgh ✊????✊???? pic.twitter.com/oRNxAUD9Uu

— Michael M. Santiago (@msantiagophotos) June 14, 2020

Post-Gazette Executive Editor Keith Burris appeared on Fox News' The Ingraham Angle where host Laura Ingraham said the publication was “smeared by the left as, you got it, racist.”

“I think it is the power of the big lie and the mob. The Twitter mob,” Burris said.

Before his appearance on Fox, Burris wrote a piece for the Post-Gazette detailing his understanding of the incident, saying many people do not have the full story.

“Editors at this newspaper did not single out a Black reporter and a Black photographer and ban them from covering Pittsburgh protests after the killing of George Floyd,” he wrote.

He called the accusations an act of defamation. Burris referred to social media as a reason this story has gained traction and blamed it for labeling the paper's leaders as racist.

“No one was taken off the protest story because of race. One person was not assigned a story because of the suggestion of bias,” he wrote. “This person was not taken off a story, but was never on it. And this person does not cover race or protests. There is no such beat. This person covers social media, normally.”

He said that editors had a conversation with Johnson after the tweet and decided her commentary was out of line because she was only supposed to report facts. He said that other white reporters were also barred from covering protests after they stated their opinion on the tweet.

He called the backlash a “propaganda campaign.”

“We will not apologize for upholding professional standards in journalism or attempting to eliminate bias,” Burris wrote.

Before the lawsuit was filed, Burris and Managing Editor Karen Kane faced widespread criticism. National journalism union, the NewsGuild-CWA, and its local affiliate, the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh, called for their resignations, reports Pittsburgh Business Times.

"Executive Editor Keith Burris and Managing Editor Karen Kane have shown outrageous insensitivity in directing coverage of protests of racism and police brutality, dismissed criticism from within their own newsroom and dehumanized their staff. They must resign immediately," NewsGuild President Jon Schleuss said in a statement.

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