Local news must invite youth into civic life — and lifelong connection

Healthy civic culture requires more than turnout at the polls. It requires regular behaviors, rooted in values and identity.

From supporting a neighbor to community organizing to improve your neighborhood to staying informed to discussing and debating the future of a community — these everyday acts of democracy are motivated by our sense of belonging. And when these actions are commonplace and widely practiced, they become important ingredients in civic health. They depend, however, on people who feel they are legitimate members of the community — people who can say “this is my place, these are my institutions, I’m part of what happens here.”

That sense of civic membership doesn’t automatically renew with each generation. It has to be built.

At API, we believe local news plays a critical role in cultivating this local identity and civic engagement — and that this benefits people across generations.

But today’s youth — Gen Z and Gen Alpha — need to be welcomed in. They need to be brought into a relationship with a local news institution just as they should be brought into and affirmed that they are active members of civic life today.

The challenges of civic culture and news sustainability are linked. Research from CIRCLE suggests young people today are most likely to trust the institutions and people they see and interact with directly. If you see or benefit from your local news operation — in your classroom, at your high school paper and on the sidelines of your games — you’re more likely to mentally file it under “institutions that show up for me.” If you grow up never seeing local news at all — or only encountering it when something goes wrong — it becomes distant at best and an antagonist at worst.

Some kind of entity, individual or AI-powered slop will “show up” for young people, though, in today’s information landscape. Youth will see someone in their feeds, or comments, or DMs. Someone will speak directly to them, which can be good, or complicated, or harmful. It might be a voice that’s distant, speaking to a national partisan identity, or a system that seems too complex and concrete to change. Their agency will feel limited, even if opportunities exist right around them in the place they call home.

The civic stakes are high because of this — but they’re also high for the sustainability of news. Unfortunately, local media are resource-strapped, and demand on news leaders’ time is intense. It’s easy to hear the word “youth” and categorize it as a “nice to have,” not a necessity. 

But having no youth engagement strategy poses a profound risk. Lose the pivotal years where people form values and identity — and marketers have long known teens develop brand loyalty — and you make winning the next generation of news consumers and defenders even more difficult. Gone, too, is the affinity for rising entrepreneurs who will sponsor or advertise with you. And, eventually, fewer people will be there to come to your defense when your press freedom is threatened.

Despite the resource challenges, bright spots in youth engagement in local news across the country exist. They point to what’s possible. Local media can:

• Celebrate youth achievements, recognizing that praise matters as much as correction. The Miami Herald/el Nuevo ‘s “Silver Knights” initiative honors youth achievement on a large scale and The Sumter Item’s Next Generation initiative regularly features young people’s achievements.
• Value where youth spend energy, showing that their activities today are worthy of attention. Houston Defender used TikTok to build community around high school sports and Maine Trust for Local News launched texting for its school sports community.
  
• Encourage youth’s freedoms, elevating what agency in democracy can look like. The Tennessean’s First Amendment beat includes student rights and The Salt Lake Tribune gave proceeds from high schooler collaboration back to a local high school journalism program.
• Equip youth with new civic skills, providing guidance and a chance to build civic muscles for life. Stet News’ “Community Voices” program gives high schoolers experience with public meetings and Mississippi Free Press’ “solution circles” build facilitation skills.
• Honor youth’s natural skills, amplifying multimedia skills and voice. CalMatters ran a teenage creator contest around election information and Morning, Trojan meets USC students where they consume information.
• Connect youth to real conversations and today’s leaders, highlighting their voice matters not just later but now. CivicLex hosts Civic Expos connecting students directly with leaders and NowKalamazoo leads “town hall field trips” that reach across generations.
• Integrate youth’s voices into coverage and conversations, highlighting that their voice matters not just later but now. Oregon Public Radio followed student experience from kindergarten to graduation and many local media, such as API Source Matters users, track age representation in their sources.
• Respond to the priorities and concerns youth express, taking them seriously and connecting where they are. Baltimore Beat made a youth-informed voter guide and VT Digger conducted a listening tour with young and rural voices.
• Remove barriers to information access, building an on-ramp to long-term priorities and habits. Lookout Santa Cruz offers free membership to high school students and the Minnesota Star Tribune gives subscription access to students upon graduation.
• Accompany them as their life evolves, designing products and experiences for the choices in front of and ahead of them. The Dallas Morning News designed voting coverage for first-time voters and The Boston Globe’s B-Side hosts a supper club to spur social connection as young people age.

Together leaders like this are building a new future for local news by empowering tomorrow’s community leaders today.

The call isn’t to reinvent Newspapers in Education or to redirect large budgets to scholastic journalism or youth programming when the other demands remain great. But it is recognition that having no youth engagement strategy is a risk, especially following recent cuts that appear detrimental to our organizations and our communities. Solutions today likely require something different, and better: collaboration with community partners and plugging into and accelerating an existing ecosystem of support for young people.

That’s why on March 25-26, 2026, we’ll convene our API Local News Summit on Youth Trust and Civic Resilience. We are clear-eyed about the obstacles to engaging youth, given the many challenges facing local news organizations— and about the stakes for business sustainability and for community health.

How can news organizations meet their needs today and build affinity that will help them problem-solve personally and engage civically as they grow? Amid challenges to news organizations’ capacity, how might media organizations partner or invest strategically to create young stakeholders and lifelong advocates for both the news organization and the community’s civic health writ large?

Together we’ll unearth:

• Innovative ways local media are structuring community engagement and coverage to amplify voice from and equip young residents as future leaders of their communities
• Frameworks from outside of journalism that may help local media build bridges with teens and young adults to encourage healthy relationships across generations
• Untapped potential to further position local media as a cultivator and retainer of young talent for local civic engagement and community leadership

This convening marks the first of our summit series for 2026 — an election year, a semiquincentennial and the year API turns 80. We’re glad to host this in West Palm Beach, Fla., a backdrop suitable for thinking about the future and civic resilience. We look forward to hosting this intimate, invitation-based and participatory gathering for approximately 60 leaders from across the country. They’ll represent the range of local media, for-profit and nonprofit, and all have active work touching this topic.

If this sounds like a convening for you, we want to know. And because this matters beyond the event itself, know that the work continues after. We’ll create resources informed by summit insights, sharing them far and wide. We’ll aim to encourage experimentation and adoption of practices. Through it all, we hope to build momentum not just for “youth outreach” but for re-investing in — so as to not lose — a generation of affinity and civic habit.