Welcome to API’s Year in Review! It’s been a busy year for us: we held three in-person API Local News Summits, supported newsrooms with election resources, built new partnerships, extended election, live events and influencer experimentation grants, and supported news organizations with our products. The API team has also been sharing their diverse expertise across industry events, training and in writing. Here are some resources we offered to help foster healthy, responsive and resilient news organizations in 2024.
Events, grants and programs
65+ grants awarded
to local news organizations and industry partners, including:
- 31 awards to local and community-based media as part of the Election Engagement Experiment fund
- 22 news organizations as part of the 2024 Election Coverage and Community Listening Fund
- Six news organizations as part of the Election + Influencers Learning Cohort
- Six news organizations participating in the live events sprint program for Table Stakes Local News Transformation Program alumni
- Trusting News to help newsrooms build trust with their audiences
- The University of Virginia Karsh Institute of Democracy to help fund a comprehensive Virginia Local News Ecosystem Study
Here are just a few ways newsroom grantees used these resources in 2024:
- Atlanta Civic Circle made the 2024 election count for Atlanta voters through reader-informed reporting and spotlighting overlooked stories.
- Blue Ridge Public Radio created a summer trivia series to reach younger audiences, and Boise State Public Radio hosted mental health chats on youth mental health in Idaho.
- Baltimore Beat built on its youth voter guide and community listening sessions.
- Salt Lake Tribune collaborated with Living Room Conversations to host a solutions-focused conversation with Utahns ages 18 to 30 ahead of the election.
- Conecta Arizona, Honolulu Civil Beat, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and Mississippi Free Press held other election-focused events that will help build connections that last long after the election.
- Public Source, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, THE CITY, WSOC-TV, Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service and Factchequeado started influencer collaborations to share their nonpartisan journalism on the 2024 elections.
30+ events
We brought together industry leaders for three API Local News Summits on:
- Elections, Trust and Democracy in Akron, Ohio
- Rural Journalism, Community and Sustainability in Tulsa, Okla.
- Fostering Collaboration and Belonging in Minneapolis, Minn.
I must commend you for handpicking such exceptional leaders and speakers. The training sessions were engaging, thoughtful, and game-changing. I enjoyed every minute of it. (Belonging Summit)
—Dr. Kortni Alston, Ph.D., Gardner-Webb University
We also held numerous events for the Table Stakes alumni community, including revenue webinars, a boot camp and coaching office hours. We held virtual events on burnout, moral injury, source auditing and more for news leaders from across the industry.
We also sponsored industry events like ONA24, the Wonder Women in Media and Entertainment breakfast, the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication preconference and more. We also supported student journalists and advisors through the Student Press Law Center.
1,450+ participants
signed up for our American Press Institute + The Associated Press election coverage webinar series, a seven-part series supporting news organizations’ evolving needs around local elections and democracy.
As an extension of the series, The AP took over a Need to Know Special Edition to share what they take into consideration when reporting on election results, misinformation, polling and more.
Share with your network
- API Year in Review 2024
You also might be interested in:
We asked four summit participants to share more about the ways they are connecting with the rural communities they serve.
At our 2024 API Local News Summit on Elections, Trust and Democracy, we heard how news organizations are doing the work to create election resources that reflect the needs of the communities they cover. We asked four summit participants to expand on the work they’re doing in this space.
These guides are here to help you save time while getting some core thinking shared among your staff, on the record. So when you face a specific development you’re not saying, “I wish we’d talked about this in advance.”
