Cascade PBS Newsroom Axing Preventable, Union Says

When Cascade PBS laid off 16 positions, including its entire news staff, on Monday, the company line was familiar: Federal budget cuts tied their hands. Heads had to roll, and Donald Trump was holding the executioner’s axehandle. However, union members of the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild don’t believe that. They don’t think these layoffs needed to happen.

“Make no mistake, the executives at Cascade PBS did not have to eliminate the newsroom and its unionized members,” Courtney Scott executive officer at the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild wrote in a statement (Disclosure: The Stranger is represented by the same union, which also represents newsrooms such as The Seattle Times and the Everett Herald). 

The federal cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting equated to a $3.5 million reduction in Cascade PBS’s budget, which had a $36 million budget this year. To make ends meet, the non-profit disassembled a newsroom that’s kept Seattle informed on local issues for nearly two decades, long before a KCTS9 merger when the publication was known as Crosscut. 

Sacrificing the newsroom during a time when journalism is a vitally important check on authoritarian power was the only way to stay afloat. Right? 

According to the company’s most recent tax filings, Cascade PBS paid CEO Rob Dunlop over $500,000 last year. The  executive team made over $2 million in salaries and bonuses. Union members estimate they collectively made $950,000 a year. Of the 140 people employed at Cascade PBS, only five people outside the newsroom lost their jobs. 

On top of that, according to a report obtained by The Stranger, Dunlop told Cascade PBS board members operating revenue was up 17 percent from last year and that the non-profit netted a $4.1 million income this fiscal year. These details were in a section titled “Update on Federal Funding: Defunded Not Defeated.”

“Cascade PBS finished the fiscal year in a solid financial position,” Dunlop wrote. Dunlop did not return The Stranger’s request for comment before press time.

The decision is especially jarring in this political climate, says Josh Cohen, a reporter laid off from Cascade PBS this week

Following the announcement, Cohen and other former news staff have heard from outraged readers and supporters. “It sounds like folks would rather continue having local and state news coverage than they would like continuing to support expensive executive salaries,” Cohen says. 

“It certainly shows a lack of commitment from Cascade Public Media to the public media piece of their name, of their reason to exist,” Cohen says. 

The Cascade PBS newsroom is scheduled to close for good on Oct. 31. It’s the scariest thing that’ll happen this  Halloween. Those upset by the decision can give the fat cats at Cascade PBS a piece of their mind here and support the impacted journalists here. (Disclosure: Some Stranger employees donated to the fund.)