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Leaning into local identity and history can move our journalism from ‘we provide facts alone’ to ‘we provide facts and serve other important community functions.’

At the American Press Institute, we believe the need for more engaged and informed communities will continue to grow. It’s why we focus on the role the press can play in community and civic life, and in facilitating discussions across communities with all of their varied voices and constituencies.

Our hope is that this guide can demystify and derisk influencer collaborations for newsrooms and get more of you on a path to responsible experimentation.

When three-way partnerships between journalists, researchers and facilitators are done well, all parties are excited by both the process and the results.

The next API Local News Summit will be on how local and community-based media might engender a local identity and embrace their geography and history. We’ll help news leaders consider how they contribute to a community’s well-being by fostering a sense of place — and how, when done with care, this might offer new ways to sustain local news.

All news outlets have stories that are central to the mission of their work, but aren’t necessarily the most popular with readers. Data gathered from tools like MFN can help find creative ways to maintain this important coverage in a way that resonates with the audience.

As stewards of the “first draft of history” in their community — and sometimes sitting on archives of historical significance as a result — news organizations and history can be a natural fit.

A case study on one Pittsburgh-area newsroom's efforts to strengthen their connections with traditionally marginalized communities through the API Inclusion Index project.

When community members are no longer voters, their needs become diffuse once again and there is no clear, focusing mandate. So many newsrooms slip back into the usual: politics coverage driven by politicians and press releases. How do we avoid that backslide?

How can we avoid that backslide this time? 

What news organizations continue to do in the days and weeks ahead will matter more than ever. They will bring people into community conversations or exclude them. They will create understanding or sow confusion.