The future of local news should be anchored in civic trust

Local news leaders today must be capable of navigating near-constant change, including in their business and the broad information environment in which they operate.

But navigating that well begins with the “first things”: Leaders must understand the many functions of journalism in civic and community life.

This is the route not only to surviving, but thriving. The roles you play in your audience members’ lives — in your community’s life — reveal the value propositions local news offers in today’s changing world.

That has long been the case, even if the stakes feel different today as commercial and nonprofit news organizations are part of an increasingly fractured media landscape.

That’s why one of our focus areas at the American Press Institute in our next chapter centers on identifying and helping local media fulfill civic purposes amid change. We think of this work through the lens of civic trust.

Civic trust is bigger than whether people trust a news organization. It includes the role local media can play in helping people understand their communities, participate in civic life and navigate differences with one another.

Trust is at the core, in dual ways. News organizations must care about the trust between themselves and the neighbors they serve, so community members can rely on the information they provide. They must also know and understand the way their news, information, products and experiences affect the trust between and among community members.

That changes how we think about the work ahead. Building civic trust starts with listening, extends to helping people participate in civic life and requires news organizations to look beyond journalism for partners and ideas.

Listen to communities first

The value of civic trust is demonstrated in Pittsburgh, where API has spent several years helping local media work together to improve trust in communities of color through the API Inclusion Index.

This collaboration of several local news outlets and the Pittsburgh Black Media Federation is built on the idea that an ecosystem can work together to address gaps in their coverage and better represent their communities, which has benefits for each individual outlet and brings better connection with and among community members. Through the project’s community listening sessions and formation of a community advisory board, news leaders learned that when one outlet harms a community, it doesn’t just affect that news outlet’s reputation, but all of them.

The importance of listening first to communities, building relationships and letting their needs help drive coverage decisions has been the bedrock of several other API programs, including our Community Listening Sprint Cohort, where The Kansas City Star’s “Voices of Kansas City” community conversation project let “the community become the assigning editor” and The Fayetteville (N.C.) Observer in N.C., held community listening sessions with Black professional women that participants then grew into a networking group and powerful community gathering. API tools like Source Matters also bring accountability and honesty to such work.

Trust isn’t something a news organization can ask a community to give it. It is built through listening, relationships and proximity — and it is the foundation on which any other ambition of a local media outlet relies.

Equip people to participate in civic life

We’ve also seen the importance of helping news outlets address civic life directly, especially around the elections, discourse and freedoms that are core to a functioning democracy. For many years, API’s challenge funds have helped news organizations like the Dallas Morning News, The City Reporter and Factchequado build community engagement and distribution around their election reporting.

In addition, we have helped opinion editors reimagine how their work models, equips residents for and can actively facilitate civic discourse. And we are ardent supporters of press freedom and the First Amendment, including other organizations’ missions to increase understanding and defense of it, such as from a young age.

Famed publisher Joseph Pulitzer said “our republic and its press will rise or fall together.” Part of the rising is not just the commitment to but the evolution of how to serve the clear civic functions our communities need.

Connect journalists and experts in complementary fields

Exploring how media might strengthen civic life in underexamined ways is a core piece of our Local News Summits. By building collaborative programs and bringing in experts from outside of journalism, we help media see the challenges they face in a different light — and it can spark collaboration, too.

When a leader at WEHCO Media attended a summit we held on youth trust and civic engagement, they met the organization Made By Us, which sparks youth engagement with another civic institution: museums. They later collaborated, along with the Clinton Presidential Center, on collecting “Letters to America“ from youth ages 5-25, establishing partnerships for the future.

Interacting with researchers and leaders in other fields could lead to increased capacity, resources or reach, much like this example. The biggest influence, however, is in seeing a challenge differently, for both parties. That helps identify new or broader opportunities, for all, in how local media fulfill needs in civic and community life.

We look forward to building on these initiatives, new opportunities and API’s legacy (which includes identifying “jobs to be done”) in the coming year.

Looking ahead

For 2027, we are keenly interested in how the fragmenting information landscape and rise of AI in particular may accelerate the desire to prioritize civic trust.

For years, publishers have relied on search to help new audiences find their journalism. As AI reshapes search and discovery, that pathway is becoming far less reliable, making direct relationships with audiences even more important. At the same time, we’re seeing promising examples of what those relationships can look like: in-person events, creator-led strategies and partnerships, even third spaces, that bring people together while also creating new opportunities for audience growth, loyalty and revenue.

The pressing challenge is to quantify the value and/or scale sustainable models for such approaches, including how to do so in resource-constrained newsrooms.

While our 2027 plans crystallize, we expect our summits, resources and programs will play a role in advancing ideas and practices for the field on this challenge. It’s consequential to the civic trust we build and support across many community differences, such as age, race and class — and the value local media can provide as it navigates another technological revolution.

The tools and pathways will keep changing. The need local journalism can meet is more enduring: helping people understand, participate in and feel connected to the communities where they live. Our job now is to find sustainable ways to do that better.

We invite you to subscribe to our Need to Know newsletter to get updates— and to encourage your news leader colleagues to be part of our next chapter.

Kevin Loker is the senior director of partnerships and development for the American Press Institute. He has been with API since 2013. He can be reached at kevin.loker@pressinstitute.org.