Senior Director, Program Operations and Partnerships
Kevin Loker, an experienced nonprofit programming, research and partnerships professional, is Senior Director of Program Operations and Partnerships at the American Press Institute. He brings 15 years of experience in the journalism support space to the role, over a decade of which has been at API itself.
As Senior Director of Program Operations and Partnerships, Kevin organizes and facilitates programming for the Journalism Strategy team. He also supports the Executive Director and SVP in maintaining and developing relationships with collaborators, sponsors and funders that help advance API’s mission.
Since joining API in 2013, Kevin has played a role in the evolution of API’s in-person events (today API Local News Summits) and research, anchored by the Media Insight Project, API’s collaboration with the Associated Press – NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Kevin’s research experience in journalism includes contributing to more than a dozen studies of U.S. news consumers through MIP, contributing to a major study of philanthropic funding ethics in news; surveys of journalists; and serving as the research assistant for the fourth edition of “The Elements of Journalism: What Newspeople Should Know and the Public Should Expect,” a widely used journalism textbook.
For 2023-2024, Kevin was a Visiting Fellow at the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University. His project built upon work to reimagine local opinion journalism and philanthropy’s role in the process. His report “Philanthropy and Local Opinion Journalism: A Civic Opportunity” was published in September 2024.
Before API, Kevin worked in digital and membership services for the Online News Association. He is a former contributor to 10,000 Words, a media industry blog. Together with his wife Laura, he received a 2017 Catholic Press Association Award for an email newsletter for Catholics. Email Kevin at kevin.loker@pressinstitute.org, follow him @kevinloker or connect with him on LinkedIn.
More from the author
Exchanges between researchers and journalists can go beyond interviews. They can also improve how journalism serves communities.
Many researchers’ findings, including on polarization, can help media and its leaders shape the journalism. The questions raised in research can help news leaders ask new questions about how journalism is done.
Acknowledgements
This report builds on the wisdom and experience of those interviewed and surveyed, and those who shape and influence the work behind the scenes.
A community of collaboration: How journalists and non-news experts can work together better
The press will be much more effective in serving people and strengthening democracy if it learns from what researchers are learning. Among the examples and takeaways, you will find that news leaders and non-news experts alike value the opportunity to think differently about the challenges in front of them, about how local news can change and how research can ask different questions.
