API’s guide to influencer collaborations

The American Press Institute has been helping local newsrooms partner with trusted messengers and influencers. This update to our influencer guide highlights lessons from our second learning cohort of 16 newsrooms from across the country, as they experimented with creative projects and social campaigns in 2025. Below, we share what worked, what surprised them and how others build trust and stronger community connections.

Local newsrooms recognize the need to establish a deeper connection with the communities they serve. One approach is to explore partnerships with local creators and influencers, addressing both the decline in trust in media and the reduced organizational capacity in newsrooms to report for their communities. But will the creator, their community and the newsroom get more from a partnership that is content-forward and relational as opposed to marketing-focused and transactional? This is the question the American Press Institute set out to explore with 16 news organizations.

With $3,000 grants and API’s hands-on support, each newsroom teamed up with local creators, influencers and trusted messengers to try something new. These weren’t one-off distribution deals; instead, they were true collaborations built around listening, sharing control and reaching audiences in ways newsrooms can’t always do on their own.

The experiments looked different in each community:

• The Houston Chronicle worked with food influencers to bring new energy to dining coverage.
• Verified News Network in Oklahoma partnered with Native dancers on wellness events, strengthening ties with Indigenous families.
• CivicLex in Kentucky tapped local creators to inspire small but meaningful acts of civic engagement, from litter cleanup to shadowing public officials.

Through all of this, API wasn’t just a funder — we were a guide and partner, helping newsrooms step outside their comfort zones and reflect on what real impact looks like. One of the cohort’s ah-ha moments? Engagement isn’t about clicks or conversions. It’s about trust, connection and the long-term relationships that keep communities and journalism strong.

Newsrooms have long relied on familiar ways to get their work out, such as publishing the story, posting it on social media and maybe sending it out in their newsletter. But our communities of readers, watchers and listeners are telling us they want something different — these traditional avenues alone won’t cut it. In fact, nearly 4 in 10 adults under 30 get their news from influencers, according to Pew Research, which suggests that our present and future news audiences want to be met where they are, with not just information but faces, voices and authentic personalities.

Journalists know they need to connect more deeply with their communities, but it’s the “how” that isn’t always clear. We hope this second set of lessons from API’s Influencer Cohort will inform other experiments and partnerships with local trusted messengers and information stewards in your communities.

Hurdles to influencer partnerships don’t have to stall the work.

As the conversation around influencer partnerships grows, so do the fears: What if it goes wrong? What if my newsroom isn’t ready?

These fears are valid, but what if it goes right? Our cohort built resilience first by surfacing these hurdles and other challenges such as:

• A steep learning curve (first-time partnerships)
• Finding willing collaborators
• Balancing brand integrity with disclosures
• Negative perceptions inside and outside the newsroom

Once everyone’s challenges were on the table, we drafted a loose “if/then” contingency plan: If this happens, then I’ll try this. For example:

If aligning with an influencer is the hurdle that shows up, then I’ll try:

• Communicating consistently and clearly
• Framing the partnership as long-term, not one-off
• Being honest that the first attempt won’t be perfect

If internal resistance is the hurdle, then I’ll try:

• Inviting editors and reporters into the influencer selection
• Involving them in planning and brainstorming
• Addressing concerns with empathy, and acknowledge the history behind their hesitation

Planning for hurdles isn’t about eliminating them; it’s about preparing for them. It’s about facing them head-on — something we can often rush by when operating at the speed of news. With this preparation, newsrooms can sustain momentum and turn fear — and even failure — into opportunity.

Success requires an expanded definition of conversion.

When newsrooms team up with social media influencers, they open the door to audiences who might never check out traditional journalism on their own — or who wait for journalism to find them. But can these partnerships spark new habits or actions toward the newsroom from people in an influencer’s community?

To really answer that, we’ve had to rethink what “success” looks like. Conversion has always been about taking action, but these actions go beyond clicks and subscriptions, especially when it comes to a successful influencer partnership. Conversation is also about trust, connection and showing up in the places people already spend their time.

Influencers help translate news into familiar formats, widening the top of the funnel. From there, it’s on the newsroom to bring people into their own spaces (newsletters, websites or apps) and keep them engaged with content that feels relevant and useful. In a newsroom-creator collab, the payoff comes when casual encounters evolve into meaningful relationships where audiences are not only returning, but are also amplifying, celebrating, subscribing, donating and sticking around. In short: influencers spark interest, but newsrooms have to keep the relationship going.

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As the projects unfolded, one thing became clear: trust is foundational. The news organizations that embraced collaboration really listened. They co-created and encouraged creators to bring their own voices, which uncovered new ways to build lasting relationships.

As many in this second cohort learned or verified through these experiments, alignment (in values and mission) can build trust, and that trust will build traction for our journalism.

These collaborations aren’t just case studies. They’re blueprints for how local journalism can rebuild relationships, expand its reach in meaningful ways and strengthen its role in public life.

If you are interested in exploring collaborations like these for your news organization, please contact us to learn how we can assist. If you are interested in partnering or financially supporting an information ecosystem or community you care about through newsroom-creator partnerships, we would love to discuss offering this learning cohort as a private contract.