A year of products and programs

Celebrating a decade of Metrics for News

As communities grow, audiences change and coverage needs evolve, can journalists make empirical choices about what to cover and how to cover it? That’s a question that, a decade ago, sparked the creation of Metrics for News, API’s content strategy analytics tool that helps publishers understand what, why and how audiences engage with their journalism. Ten years later MFN is not only answering that question but guiding news organizations to:

• Launch newsrooms to serve new audiences
• Start specialized newsletters for multilingual audiences
• Change beats to better engage younger audiences
• Experiment with social platforms to better reach key audiences, just to name a few.

“Metrics for News is an invaluable part of our toolkit. It organizes our data, our journalism and our audience in ways that make actionable insights almost impossible to miss. Frankly, I couldn’t imagine crafting or executing a newsroom strategy without it.”

–Elizabeth Couch, director of audience engagement for Crain Communications’ City Brands

Centering community voices with Source Matters

As news organizations work to grow and nurture relationships in their communities, many are focusing on ways to not only track their outreach but also build in the accountability necessary to improve. For some news organizations, source tracking is just one way they can center care for their communities by examining whose stories are told and whose perspectives dominate their journalism.

Source Matters, which was named as Best New Digital Product by INMA in 2022, helps news organizations automate source tracking to more fully and fairly represent the communities they serve and center community voices in their coverage. Here’s how some newsrooms use Source Matters.

• The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on getting source tracking buy-in both internally and externally
• Conecta Arizona on source transparency as a tool for change
• How the San Antonio Report developed new sources by tracking source diversity

25+ speaking, training and engagement opportunities

API staff shared their expertise at conferences, in webinars and through sessions across the country, inspired by our training portfolio. Highlights included:

• Sam Ragland spoke on the Laid Off and Looking podcast about understanding trauma in journalism
• Ragland also shared tips to managing burnout and stress with the National Press Club Institute
• Kevin Loker discussed local opinion sections and civics at the Elijah E. Cummings Democracy and Freedom Festival