A year in content

A year of work by API’s communications team culminated last week when we introduced a new logo and look for our main website and unveiled our updated messaging. The updates center community and advocate for a holistic approach to how we define the sustainability of individual news organizations and our industry. We hope it creates more clarity about what we do — and what we don’t. 

Our new mission simply states: 

We support local and community-based media through research, programs and products that foster healthy, responsive and resilient news organizations.

We divide how we approach this work into four focus areas that we believe are critical to our industry and to our country:

• Civic Discourse & Democracy: We work to ensure all people have the information they need to make decisions and thrive.
• Culture & Inclusion: We mentor journalism professionals toward integrating diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging in every aspect of their work.
• Community Engagement & Trust: We support news organizations as they build trusted relationships with their communities.
• Revenue & Resilience: We provide news organizations with the tools and resources they need to think creatively and achieve overall wellness.

You’ve likely seen these themes reflected in our coverage and programming this year, and they will continue guiding our offerings in 2024. 

Here’s what else we’ve shared with you this year.

12 special editions

Our Need to Know Special Editions highlight API and partner voices on the issues most relevant to news organizations, offering actionable insights and resources you can implement immediately. Here’s what we covered this year:

• Leadership Reset helps journalists and media leaders navigate and overcome common leadership challenges through exercises 
• Inside the Inclusion Index offers insights on serving communities of color and implementing concrete, sustainable diversity and inclusion changes
• An Inclusive Guide to Online Safety, a takeover by the International Women’s Media Foundation, shares tools and trends in online safety
• Reimagining Local Opinion Journalism delves into modernizing opinion sections 
• Transitioning to GA4 offers tips and resources to ensure painless analytics migration 
• Engage to Build Trust, a takeover by Trusting News, shares best practices for engaging audiences
• Mental Health Reset offers leadership exercises to support your mental health and the well-being of your team
• Local News & AI shares resources and advice on how AI can serve your news organization 
• Diversify Your Sources amplifies insights on source diversity tracking  
• Balancing Well-Being shares 20 daily prompts to support the well-being of news teams 
• Plan for Local 2024, in partnership with the Associated Press, provides advice to help you plan your local election coverage 
• API Year in Review 

12 articles

Our articles update media and journalism leaders on the shifts happening within the industry, while also bringing our team’s expertise and insights to the conversation. This year, we wrote about:

• How to navigate the social media tumult experienced throughout 2023, including other ways to engage readers 
• The mental health crisis in newsrooms, including what burnout looks like for journalists and how to address it
• New ways to think about source diversity, including a guide to auditing sources
• Opinion journalism and community listening, including how to learn what audiences want from election coverage

3 reports and studies

Our joint research initiative, the Media Insight Project, conducts data-driven studies meant to inform the news industry and the public about various important issues facing journalism and the news business. We also develop an array of reports that offer a collection of insights, resources and intelligence on specific topics.

• The most recent Media Insight Project research explores how Gen Z and Millennials pay for or donate to news
• We issued a report assessing the Pittsburgh news ecosystem’s commitment to diversity and inclusion based on the work of Dr. Letrell Crittenden, API’s director of inclusion and audience growth, with the first API Inclusion Index cohort in Pittsburgh
• We compiled a mental health resource guide for journalists that addresses the unique challenges news employees face and how management can help 

4 guest essays on opinion journalism

As part of our work to promote healthier civic discourse and to better understand its role in news business sustainability, we highlighted voices of experts on new approaches opinion editors can consider.

• Bring constructive conflict to local opinion journalism by Hélène Biandudi Hofer, Good Conflict
• Invest in staff to grow local opinion journalism’s reach with diverse communities by Robin Wilson-Glover, NJ Advance Media
• Clarify your opinion product’s mission to boost audience financial support by Annafi Wahed, The Flip Side
• How local opinion sections can transform into public forums: Insights from public deliberation by Martín Carcasson, Colorado State University Center for Public Deliberation