News Blog

New year, same old meetings. Meetings that don’t include the right people or that include too many people. Meetings that could have been an email. But what if it didn’t have to be that way? As we kick off 2026, API wants to help you reset and rethink key meetings in your news organization.

We asked five leaders with community engagement experience outside of news about the opportunities they see for local media to build trust or belonging, from using physical spaces like libraries and community gardens to digital platforms that support shared experiences.

When we founded The 51st, we wanted to lead a news organization shaped by D.C. residents. And the Community Connector program has become an integral way of doing so.

From the outset, we knew we wanted to highlight art and help people connect with other residents who had a positive vision for Birmingham. Here are methods that helped us fill a historic theater for a fun and engaging evening.

If cultural experiences beyond the Blues were offered, would visitors be interested? And what could be done to help local residents build capacity to compete with the larger tourism industry?

By partnering with teachers, editors and writing mentors embedded in the communities that newsrooms hope to serve, journalism can build pathways for people with lived experience to join the civic conversation.

We asked four summit participants to share more about the ways they are empowering communities with skills and opportunities to have influence in their local news ecosystem.

API shared articles and resources about ways to build trust with communities, tell impactful storytelling, engage younger audiences and navigate the unique challenges of working in this industry. Here are some of the most popular articles from this year.

Here's who joined us and what we've been up to in 2025.

Here's a list of frequently asked questions about influencer collaborations to help publishers navigate this sometimes tricky terrain.