Special Edition

In the API Learning Cohort, and from our own conversations and research, we realized one of the most important decisions you’ll make is choosing who to partner with. Here are some things to consider.

The Houston Chronicle created small-scale experiments that tested how strategically work with a creator while navigating potentially thorny issues around ethics, control and impact. In this series, they walk you through what they did.

You don’t need a product team or a new budget line to get started. You need one mindset shift, one outcome metric and one protected hour per week to make it happen.

Here are three simple principles any newsroom, of any size, can use to start building products that last longer, serve deeper and make your work more sustainable.

Here’s the challenge: Take a look at the last week of your coverage. Which pieces solved a problem? Which could have been reshaped into a product? Try this shift once and see how it feels. Not just for your audience, but for yourself.

What if we started looking at our output as a product, not a service? Too often, we think "product" means a fancy app or a new website. But product isn’t about tech. It’s about intention.

As the program and newsroom expand, Martinez shares how trust built with community listening and authentic engagement can be replicated in other community newsrooms across the country.

Giving young people a space to interact with community leaders, and facilitating such gatherings to empower them to lead the conversation, can create a lasting and mutually beneficial feedback loop for newsrooms.

By connecting generations and harnessing history to tell the story of Baca County, the Plainsman Herald has found new revenue sources, partnerships with community and historical organizations and a path forward to serving its community.

We’ve seen early wins: Our next-gen audience (ages 18–44) grew from 3,900 to 32,500 – a 733% growth in six months. If a small BIPOC-led newsroom like ours can reimagine itself as a dynamic cross-generational platform, others can too.