API Update

This transition comes as API continues supporting local and community newsrooms, advancing journalistic sustainability and programming for equity and belonging in media.

The plans — each supported by a $3,000 grant from API and refined with API's help — will build connections with new audiences and serve communities by prioritizing storytelling and positive impact.

The American Press Institute announced today that CEO and Executive Director Michael D. Bolden will join the University of California Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism as its eighth dean this summer.

Programming will involve both publicly available training, including webinars, and resources for the field, such as those from API’s work with influencer collaborations.

This initiative will help participants develop influencer collaborations around their journalism, including co-hosted Instagram reels to share reporting and promote products, explanatory reporting, ongoing partnerships and live events.

These programs, both evolutions of long-standing journalism industry efforts, reaffirm API’s commitment to fostering a more inclusive, transparent and accountable media landscape.

Through its 2025 Revenue Experiments Learning Cohort, API will support the eight local and community news organizations — all alumni of the U.S.-based Table Stakes Local News Transformation Program — with peer-learning calls to help them clarify their experiments, share ideas, and define effective tactics and strategies.

The selected organizations are U.S. local and community-based media organizations that are alumni of the U.S.-based Table Stakes program and participated in the API Local News Summit for Belonging and Collaboration in July 2024.

Participating news organizations will receive $3,000 to establish connections and collaborate with local influencers or trusted messengers.

The new grants specifically help augment community engagement efforts with at least one of two strategies for community engagement: community listening and conversations, and the strategic use of print.