American Press Institute

6 days ago | americanpressinstitute.org | Samantha Ragland |Kevin Loker

If a good newspaper, as the playwright Arthur Miller said, is a “nation talking to itself,” then it follows that a good local news organization must be a town, or a community, doing the same thing. But those conversations are quite different today than when Miller made this observation more than six decades ago. And journalists’ role in the discussion has changed amid a splintered media environment, political polarization, economic uncertainty and a national epidemic of loneliness.

2 weeks ago | americanpressinstitute.org | Emily Ristow

The most successful Table Stakes organizations have a product-thinking mindset, whether they use those words or not. They root their journalism in their audiences’ and communities’ needs, using data to guide their strategies. They use a variety of platforms and create journalism specific to those platforms. And they have a culture of experimentation and learning with a willingness to fail along the way to success.

2 weeks ago | americanpressinstitute.org | Emily Ristow

Welcome to our April Need to Know series on the Digital Transformation Guide — a resource of proven and tested strategies that can accelerate digital transformation in local news. Each week Emily Ristow, the American Press Institute’s Director of Journalism Strategy, will walk you through a key strategy from the guide and offer an exercise you can do to try it.

3 weeks ago | americanpressinstitute.org | Lilly Chapa

Once API’s influencer cohort ended their experiments last fall, they were encouraged to expand their retrospective beyond assessing what worked and what didn’t, instead considering value creation questions. Was the experiment was valuable for the newsroom? Their community? The influencer? How could similar campaigns be more valuable in the future? Below are some ways to approach a retrospective on an influencer partnership, and examples of insights the 2024 cohort walked away with.

1 month ago | americanpressinstitute.org | Lilly Chapa

Editor’s Note: The American Press Institute invites U.S. local and community-based media to apply for our Influencers Learning Cohort 2025. Participating news organizations will receive $3,000 to establish connections and collaborate with local influencers or trusted messengers. This program builds upon the work of a 2024 cohort that fostered local media collaborations with trusted messengers and influencers on nonpartisan journalism related to the elections. Learn more and apply by March 31.