(Photo by Maiacosis/WikiMedia Commons)
People have been whispering “journalism is dying” for as long as I’ve been working in media over the past 40-plus years.
They were wrong and still are. But the model many were hoping would save the day — nonprofit news that depends on donations and grants instead of subscriptions and ads — is more fragile than expected. That proved true this week when Seattle-based Cascade PBS said it is shuttering its vibrant, award-winning newsroom. It marks the end of an 18-year run for the publication originally known as Crosscut, one of the early entrants into nonprofit news.
The organization’s leadership blames $3.5 million in cuts from the federal government after Congress signed off on President Donald Trump’s demands to stop supporting the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
About a dozen journalists and a handful of others from throughout the organization were given notice that their jobs were ending at Cascade PBS. Similar news is hitting public broadcasting stations around the nation, or will be soon.
I cautiously sang the praises of the nonprofit approach when, in December 2019, I joined Crosscut. It was a few years earlier, in 2015, when Crosscut merged with public TV station KCTS-9. We were at the cutting edge of a movement to combine in-depth journalism with the financial might of local NPR and PBS stations.
I told my friends and my team of talented journalists that Crosscut could continue indefinitely its important work covering the stories the more mainstream media didn’t have time to focus on because we were attached to the PBS station. Who doesn’t love Elmo with their donation dollars?
We paid our reporters decently. We had a dumpy, yet centrally located office, which was upgraded to beautiful new headquarters last year. And the bosses left coverage decisions to me and the other journalists.
Flash forward to this week, and many loyal readers, as well as journalists around the state, are in mourning. Elmo couldn’t save Crosscut. And neither could the donors who dug deep after they heard of congressional action to rescind federal funding already committed to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Others blame Cascade PBS leadership for making the wrong choice. I’m not going to debate that decision because it is being aired thoroughly elsewhere, and I wasn’t in the room where it was discussed. But I will push back on the comments from one of my former editors who described the Crosscut experiment as a disappointment that “rarely lived up to its potential.”
Here’s a short list of some ways Crosscut journalists met their potential, doing important journalism outside of the daily grind of the news cycle:
This small newsroom kept much larger outlets like The Seattle Times on their toes for nearly two decades and made sure Washingtonians understood how government actions affected their lives.
Seattle Times Executive Editor Michele Matassa Flores, like a lot of prominent journalists working in Seattle today, toiled at Crosscut earlier in her career, working as an editor there from 2010-2011.
“Crosscut has been an important part of the media landscape here for many years,” Flores wrote in an email. “Just looking at the site right now, Cascade is examining the governor’s early months in office, updating its own investigation over wind energy in Eastern Washington, and providing right reporting on arts and culture. These are stories that provide a true public service.”
She acknowledged that Crosscut helped make Times journalists better while strengthening civic engagement.
“At such a critical time for our democracy, we need more reporting, more voices, more people watching what our government leaders do. Not fewer,” Flores wrote.
She called the politically motivated cuts to public media funding more than sad. It’s frightening.
For those vilifying Cascade’s leadership and not the federal government over this decision, I want to make sure you know that Crosscut would have died a decade ago if KCTS didn’t recognize the potential for a meaningful collaboration. That was nearly 10 years of great journalism and growth that would not have happened.
The last writer and editor from the beginning of Crosscut who still works at Cascade PBS today agrees with me that those years were a gift to the community.
Knute Berger, known on TV, audio and in print as Mossback but also in the journalism world for his time as editor of The Seattle Weekly, describes the early years: “I was part of the start-up group that David Brewster collected to go forth and try to add something new to the regional media ecosystem.”
Berger recalls that Brewster built a community of writers who were all free agents at the time: freelancers, part-timers, retirees — smart people who wanted an outlet for civically minded journalism.
“And it almost worked until the money ran out, and then KCTS-9 saved the day by taking us in,” Berger wrote in an email, where he offered a long list of journalists who made a difference.
Casey Corr, another of Crosscut’s original writers, spoke at length about Brewster’s vision and how he attracted talented journalists to work for free, which might have been part of Crosscut’s early formula for success.
But Corr said it was the way Crosscut approached its reporting and writing that attracted readers and gave the publication legs: a focus on behind the scenes, who was influencing who.
“When I wrote for Crosscut, I felt liberated in the sense that I could tell readers this is how it really works. I never felt that way completely writing for either of the daily newspapers,” Corr said.
One of the publication’s early editors, Joe Copeland, spoke of the news organization’s many “near-death experiences” when nonprofit fundraising fell short and grants ran out. He said the merger with KCTS was more than a financial boost; it was good for Crosscut’s journalism.
“In my experience, the best years at Crosscut were after they combined with KCTS. That opened up opportunities for wider coverage,” Copeland said.
Corr said the merger didn’t just save Crosscut, it gave something to the public TV station as well, by helping it return to its promise of public service journalism. What is going to happen now, Corr asked.
Berger has a similar concern about journalism in general.
“That it is now kaput is a tough loss for those of us who put heart and soul into it, especially at this time and for the reason that Congress, at Donald Trump’s urging, made the decision to defund public media. We are a casualty of that,” notes Berger. His broadcast work at Cascade PBS is expected to continue, as will other local TV production. I can’t imagine the protest that would form outside the station if he were part of the shutdown.
All the people I spoke with hope others will keep experimenting and not give up on public service journalism. So do I.