Seattle’s Cascade PBS blamed federal cuts for layoffs, announced last week, that will end its foray into written local news coverage.

But its hybrid newsroom, formed by the 2015 acquisition of online news startup Crosscut, was already moving toward more short-form video before President Donald Trump and Congress swung their ax at public broadcasters.

Despite some great work the merger never seemed to fully gel. Local news remained sparse on Cascade’s primary channel, KCTS 9, and its online news site never drew huge readership.

Now the layoffs are driving the last nail into Crosscut’s coffin. They add to questions about how much public broadcasters can replace the loss of in-depth, local reporting that newspapers historically provided.

Public broadcasters are a critical part of the news

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