Featured Article

As the American Press Institute marks 80 years, we’ll honor our legacy by continuing to respond to the evolving needs of news leaders. Our upcoming API Local News Summits will explore three critical places where democracy and sustainability intersect.

Every community has a commons — a park, a library, a garden — a shared space that only thrives when people care for it together. Our local information ecosystems are no different. At our recent Local News Summit, we asked the room: What does it mean to be gardeners, guards and stewards of the local information commons?

We know psychological safety might feel like a ‘nice to have,’ but what if the failure to create that safety is silently stalling your best ideas and alienating your next generation of leaders?

Generational tension has always existed, of course, but today it is amplified by several factors, both in our communities and our newsrooms. We asked five summit participants to share more about the ways they are engaging and serving multigenerational audiences.

These partnerships can help rebuild trust in local media by including more voices and perspectives, and they offer a foundation for repair, restoration and reinvention. They weave the community together, fostering multidirectional conversations, a shared sense of place and joint ownership over our civic future.

We should work to become trauma-informed news leaders — no matter where we sit in the shop — and be intentional to practice this when the stakes are lowest.

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.’