Seattle's Cascade PBS announces layoffs, end of online long-form journalism

September 22, 2025 / 1:24 pm

caption: The front steps of the Cascade PBS building in Seattle, Washington.

Seattle's PBS station will cease production of its local long-form journalism, leadership announced on Monday.

The move, attributed to a $3.5 million annual loss in federal funding, marks the layoffs of 17 staffers, Cascade PBS President and CEO Rob Dunlop told KUOW.

"With the loss of federal funding for public media, we have been forced to make some hard choices about where we will invest our reduced resources for a sustainable future," Dunlop wrote to staff on Monday in an email shared with KUOW. "Sadly, we are joining public radio and television stations around the country who are making similarly difficult choices."

Dunlop said the organization would expand production of The Newsfeed to five days per week, and continue its other local video series, including Mossback's Northwest, The Nosh, Nick on the Rocks, Out & Back, and Art by Northwest. The station will also add three new positions, Dunlop added.

"These are painful decisions to make and none of the impacted team members did anything to bring this about," Dunlop wrote to staff. "They have served Cascade PBS and this region with passion and distinction. To the journalists affected, their work has earned much well-deserved recognition that has elevated our mission."

A spokesperson for the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild, which represents journalists at Cascade PBS, said in a written statement that the union was "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."

The statement continues, "We do not yet fully understand why this decision was made and we will be meeting in Cascade PBS executives and management in the coming days to discuss the impact on our union members and the reasoning behinds these decisions.”