Crosscut.com isn't just another local news site—it's a surviving artifact of the dying fourth estate, powered by the Public Broadcasting Service. With a skeleton crew of 33 and revenue under $4M, it represents the harsh reality of modern journalism: survival through hyper-localization.

"With only 4,570 monthly visits, Crosscut proves that scale isn't the only metric that matters—local relevance is the moat."

The leadership team—Sarah Menzies (Director Videography), Lilly Fowler (Staff Writer), Martina Pansze (Senior Associate)—is lean and focused. With no funding rounds listed and revenue at $3.7M, this is a self-sustaining operation, not a venture-backed growth play. The absence of backlink data suggests they're not aggressively pursuing SEO authority, relying instead on the PBS ecosystem and local partnerships.

• Hyper-local focus with PBS infrastructure backing
• Lean operations with 33 employees for $3.7M revenue (~$112k/employee)
• Modern but conservative tech stack (Tailwind, Vite, PWA)
• Strong direct traffic (42%) indicating brand loyalty
• Minimal organic search optimization despite 32% organic traffic