Americans face increasing news fatigue. That may feel palpable in an election year when journalists are keyed into critical issues around elections of all sizes — and polls suggest many Americans limit the information they consume or pursue on elections so they aren’t overwhelmed.
The bigger picture is different. News fatigue doesn’t mean Americans spend less time online or that people care less about their communities. In many cases, Americans encounter or choose other ways to learn about the subjects and places they care about — including from individuals with influence and in spaces that they trust.
It’s important that news leaders learn from these sources as well as pursue opportunities to work together, which is why the American Press Institute is helping six media organizations start influencer collaborations to share their nonpartisan journalism on the elections.
“Influencers” come in different forms. Most people think about those with Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube followings, and some proponents of traditional media have condemned this group’s impact on news while others have celebrated it. But these trusted messengers can also be community figures, whether religious leaders, coaches, admins of a Facebook group, or even the person who always holds that neighborhood block party.
Either way, they gained that influence — they became trusted — because of their authenticity and alignment of values with their core community. As much as they are influencers and messengers, they are also translators and weavers: people who convene, whether digitally or in person for a defined purpose. Often, they have shared experience; they offer specific expertise or knowledge; they are consistent and demonstrate commitment; they share access (to themselves, their processes and their vulnerabilities); and they embrace multi-directional conversation. Most are also true to their platform, using digital spaces especially for powerful, native storytelling and information sharing.
The goal is to be trusted and influential while delivering culturally relevant, mixed-media storytelling. These trusted messengers are examples of the community connection, representation and engagement — all core to our work at the American Press Institute — that happens as a result. It can also yield the sensemaking necessary to deepen connection and bank social currency — two things Benjamin Toff, a professor at the University of Minnesota and author of “Avoiding the News: Reluctant Audiences for Journalism,” notes are important antidotes to news avoidance.
Local and community-based media want to be trusted and influential like this. They want to be chosen and turned to like this. But they often attempt it alone. Collaborations between influencers and media can be mutually beneficial, and we believe that the communities they together serve also benefit.
Why collaborate, why now
Finding ways to work with some of these individuals is a display of love for community, as bridge-building always is. For media, especially legacy local media, these collaborations can show you are in touch with the community. That you as a media outlet, just as they as individuals, want what’s best for the people there. You want to help your neighbors thrive.
There’s also an urgency to this work and these partnerships. As journalism strategist and advocate of creator-led journalism Liz Kelly Nelson wrote in her newsletter Project C: “The sheer ubiquity, stickiness and virality of influencer content is pushing credible news, and news sources, to the side.”
Influencers are part of the media landscape, and disliking this fact does not make it disappear. Platforms will continue to evolve as will the ways people search for, scroll by and engage with information. Still, people who care and want to weave community with information-sharing will remain. For local news organizations, sharing their power and authority as the local news source is as much about relevance and engagement as sustainability. These partnerships are for those playing the long game; they will help build and sustain trust in the present moment while potentially paying off with revenue in the future.
Differences but also similarities
Influencers and news leaders may differ in their approaches to support and improve the community. We recognize that. But we also recognize that’s not always the case. Journalism has many functions; some mirror what these messengers do online. And, of course, influencers can bring the “tough love” — the fair and necessary accountability of institutions, of people in power and of each other — that journalists also strive for.
And to be sure, not all influencers are equal, so there won’t be a one-size-fits-all approach for these kinds of collaborations. Likewise, not all news organizations uphold the same values and mission paramount to their community’s well-being. This is why we’re most interested in this conversation and evolution of information-sharing from the perspective of local news and local community — where hacking algorithms and increasing reach may be less important than facilitating conversation and fostering connection.
The clear benefits now — and what we’d all benefit from learning
We can all realize, however, that news organizations face decreasing resources and often tunnel vision for what should come next and how; these challenges can maintain the status quo instead of upend it. As a result, “feeding the beast” of the legacy print or broadcast product, or even now the legacy website, can limit the possibilities for those within the news organization who could become trusted messengers themselves. These collaborations could help news organizations with network-building and skill-sharing.
Likewise, influencers can benefit, especially micro-influencers — those in your community truly serving the community they live in. In addition to possible pay consistency, the opportunity to join a team instead of being a team of one can be appealing. These collaborations would open a content creator to diverse perspectives and story ideation as well as feedback and edits on their content.
Influencers and trusted messengers are often on the community asset maps that are core to our API Inclusion Index. We see, too, in research how trusted messengers matter for news that’s shared. We know Millennials and Gen Z pay for or donate to support email newsletters or video or audio from independent creators at higher rates than newspapers. Our newsrooms need more people outside their walls, contributing to the mission from a place of care. These collaborations, done well, enhance the possibilities for news’ role in civic discourse and democracy.
Our API Elections + Influencers Learning Cohort started in September with more questions than answers. And now their work is beginning. We plan to share resources from aiding these experiments, including storytelling possibilities, template contracts, methods to measure impact and examples of success.
We are also asking a lot of questions, including:
- How does skepticism toward influencer and media collaborations resemble early skepticism toward the greater collaborative journalism movement? What can we learn by studying the parallels and the differences?
- What opportunities are there for news organization’s internal collaboration across generations, and how can lessons learned here help other efforts of the operation?
- How might we set a standard of practice for these collaborations that enables their creativity and authenticity while also safeguarding a newsroom’s editorial integrity and mission? (If you haven’t already contributed to the survey for drafting standards for independent creator journalism by Project C, please do.)
- What more can we learn about how these collaborations improve sustainability of local media for the long haul? And how do we reconcile information living on influencer platforms, especially on social media, instead of always pushing to our websites?
- Likewise, how might these collaborations contribute to a more diverse local news landscape and the sustainability of those independent creators within it?
- How can collaborations evolve to benefit the local media ecosystem, strengthening the skills and ties between people who care deeply about improving their community, journalists, residents, everyone?
- What is the difference between content creators and creator journalism, and how might that difference inform these partnerships and further diversify the local news ecosystem?
- What are the community payoffs that we can measure, especially as they relate to increases in social capital, human capital, social cohesion or even depolarization?
And, perhaps most importantly: What are we missing?
Journalism will continue to evolve in how it’s done, and experimentation contributes to improving journalism and its sustainability. The discovery process — enabling more work and discussion — drives innovation and evolution.
If you are interested in helping your news organization embrace collaborations such as these, please contact us to hear how we might help. And if you are interested in partnering or financially supporting such efforts to help local news increase social trust and decrease polarization through active partnerships with trusted messengers, please let us know that, too.
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