Reports
API invests significant time, thought and resources in producing research that we believe is definitive and useful. We address the most-pressing issues facing news organizations — understanding audiences, creating business models, and internal transformation — in a way that helps the leaders and the strivers in those organizations form plans and take action.
This page collects all of API’s in-depth research of several forms — strategy studies that help publishers form their own plans, survey research analysis that explores the needs of modern news audiences, and white papers that share insights from in-person events.
How to cover local refugee communities: Strategies for newsrooms and reporters
The word “refugee” evokes a certain image: people fleeing persecution or war-torn areas, living under harsh refugee camp conditions, starting a new life in a foreign country. In reality, there are many different pictures. The refugees who resettled in America in 2016 alone represent 107 countries and varied educational, economic, religious and ethnic backgrounds. Each […]
After a decade, it’s time to reinvent social media in newsrooms
For newsrooms, the social media tumult began a decade ago. In 2008, journalists new to digital media in legacy print newsrooms were trying to adapt to a Twitter invention called the hashtag. Facebook was confounding them, and MySpace was dying just when some were beginning to understand it. Then came the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, […]
A Matter of Space: Designing newsrooms for new digital practice
Over the past decade, technology has driven unprecedented change in news audiences and news organizations. News organizations have experimented with business models, integrated new technologies, adopted digital platforms and established digital-first workflows. Yet in too many newsrooms, the physical spaces are stuck in the late 20th century. Now some newsroom leaders are redesigning their workplaces […]
How can collaborations between ethnic and mainstream outlets serve communities in the digital age?
A Nigerian chief, a Chinese activist, and a Muslim Republican shared their perspectives on the hotly contested 2017 New Jersey governor’s race. The stories and more than a dozen others like them are part of Voting Block, a unique, statewide collaboration between more than 20 ethnic, hyperlocal and mainstream news outlets. Each publication commits to […]
The Innovation Divide: Similarities and differences in how managers and staff view the transition to digital
Editor’s note: Rather than slow, the pace of change in news in 2017 appears only to be accelerating. McClatchy’s new chief executive recently announced a program to speed up digital transformation in the newspaper chain’s 31 newsrooms. The multi-million dollar Knight-Lenfest Newsroom initiative (of which API plays a role) has expanded its team-centric process to […]
Tools for better accountability journalism
Creating charts, videos and interactives to enhance fact-checking and accountability reporting doesn’t need to involve a huge staff and expensive equipment. Here are some free or inexpensive tools and software that can help you create fact- and data-dominated presentations. Have recommendations of your own? Tell us here so we can add them to this list. […]
Improving accountability reporting: How to make the best of journalism better for audiences
By many measures, never have there been more efforts in journalism to scrutinize and hold powerful people and institutions accountable. The number of news organizations doing fact-checking journalism has nearly tripled since 2014. Non-profit investigative news has expanded, along with a clearer effort in all kinds of reporting to call out deception and avoid false […]
Partisanship and the media: How personal politics affect where people go, what they trust, and whether they pay
This research was conducted by the Media Insight Project — an initiative of the American Press Institute and the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research New research shows that although Americans are in many ways divided in their attitudes toward the media, Republicans and Democrats are in many ways strikingly alike in their behavior […]
‘My’ media versus ‘the’ media: Trust in news depends on which news media you mean
This research was conducted by the Media Insight Project — an initiative of the American Press Institute and the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research For years, studies have shown Americans’ trust in the news media is steadily declining. In recent months, the rise of so-called fake news and the rhetoric of President Donald […]
How news partnerships work: Commercial and nonprofit newsrooms can work together to benefit and change journalism
What is a successful partnership? In the last decade, nonprofit news organizations have emerged with a model that depends on creative partnerships. At the same time, most commercial newsrooms have seen deep cuts to staffing and resources, leaving them in search of ways to sustain the quality and depth of their journalism. These forces are […]