Rod Doss receives mayor’s ‘Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award’

COURIER EDITOR AND PUBLISHER ROD DOSS, IN THE MAYOR’S OFFICE, OCT. 3, 2024. (PHOTO BY ROB TAYLOR JR.) It’s hard to say “New Pittsburgh Courier” without saying “Rod Doss.” When the “Pittsburgh Courier” became the “New Pittsburgh Courier” after John H. Sengstacke purchased the newspaper in 1966, the Courier’s offices, which originally were in the Hill District, soon settled on the South Side, at 315 East Carson Street, about a 10-minute walk from the Smithfield Street Bridge. The next year, 1967, saw a well-dressed, well-kept, twenty-something African American man walk into the office as the Courier’s newest advertising sales executive. Sixteen years later, in 1983, that same man was elevated to Vice President and General Manager of the Courier. And following the death of his mentor, Sengstacke, in 1997, that same man was named Editor and Publisher of the Courier. That man is Rod Doss. So it seemed fitting that, for a man who has only missed one year of the entirety of the “New” Pittsburgh Courier’s existence, the City of Pittsburgh would bestow on Doss the honor of being the first-ever recipient of the mayor’s “Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award.” ROD DOSS, WITH PITTSBURGH MAYOR ED GAINEY, OCT. 3. (PHOTO...