Cascade PBS is restructuring its news operation and eliminating almost 20 jobs, the Seattle-based public media organization announced Monday, citing federal budget cuts and eliciting alarm from its journalists’ union.<\/p>\n
Formed in 2015 by the merger of KCTS 9 TV and the nonprofit news website Crosscut<\/a>, Cascade PBS will continue making video programs but will \u201ccease production of long-form written journalism,\u201d it said in a news release<\/a>.<\/p>\n In other words, it’s laying off its news writers and their editors.<\/p>\n The organization is immediately losing $3.5 million annually due to Congress\u2019 recent defunding<\/a> of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, it said.<\/p>\n \u201cThis unprecedented federal decision has had devastating effects on more than 300 public television and radio outlets across the country, and we\u2019re not immune here at home,\u201d Cascade PBS CEO Rob Dunlop said in a statement.<\/p>\n Recent gifts from supporters have given Cascade PBS a financial lifeline but it \u201ccannot count on emergency donations\u201d in the long run, Dunlop said.<\/p>\n \u201cThese are painful cuts to make,\u201d he added, saying the changes will impact \u201cour community and on the staff who\u2019ve served this region with passion.\u201d<\/p>\n Monday\u2019s release said the cuts would affect positions in the organization\u2019s \u201cmarketing, creative and editorial departments, representing a 12% reduction in staff.\u201d In an interview, Dunlop said 19 existing positions would be eliminated and three new jobs would be added, with a focus on multimedia.<\/p>\n The Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild, which represents nonmanagerial journalists at Cascade PBS, described the losses as sweeping.<\/p>\n Nine of the Guild\u2019s 22 members at Cascade PBS are being laid off, including reporters and editors, Courtney Scott, executive officer for the union, said in an emailed statement. The outlet previously laid off some reporters while adding video and podcast specialists in 2023<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild is deeply disappointed that Cascade PBS is choosing to eliminate its newsroom and lay off its reporters at a time when we need good, thoughtful journalism more than ever,\u201d Scott said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe do not yet fully understand why this decision was made and we will be meeting Cascade PBS executives and management in the coming days to discuss the impact on our union members and the reasoning,\u201d Scott added.<\/p>\n KCTS 9\u2019s history dates to 1954 and Crosscut was established in 2007. Last year, the organization formed through their merger celebrated moving into a new headquarters on First Hill<\/a> after leaving a prior location in Seattle Center.<\/p>\n At the time<\/a>, Cascade PBS touted modern digital production capabilities on First Hill and extensive building improvements made possible by more than 4,000 donors in a capital campaign that raised $13.4 million<\/a>. The organization had to relocate because it was losing its Seattle Center lease, Dunlop said Monday.<\/p>\n Monday\u2019s news release said Cascade PBS will now focus on video programs like “Mossback\u2019s Northwest,” “Art by Northwest” and “The Newsfeed.” “The Newsfeed” will expand from one day per week to five days, Dunlop said.<\/p>\n “We had to look really carefully at each area of our operation and ask ourselves where must we be successful,” he said. “We recognized that for 70 years the core of this organization has been as a PBS member station.”<\/p>\n At the same time, “We love our news colleagues, we love the work they’ve done,” Dunlop said. “They’ve done nothing wrong to bring this about.”<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yakimaherald.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Cascade PBS is restructuring its news operation and eliminating almost 20 jobs, the Seattle-based public media organization announced Monday, citing federal budget cuts and eliciting alarm from its journalists’ union. Formed in 2015 by the merger of KCTS 9 TV and the nonprofit news website Crosscut, Cascade PBS will continue making video programs but will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2042512,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[370534],"class_list":["post-2042511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-keystfeed"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Cascade-PBS-slashes-Seattle-newsroom-citing-federal-cuts-Entertainment.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2042511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2042511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2042511\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2042512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2042511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2042511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2042511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}