Practice engaged journalism to better serve your community

Trust in local news has been on the decline. In a 2022 survey by Pew Research, 71% of adults said they had some or a lot of trust in the information they get from local news organizations. That was down from 82% in 2016.

One way to rebuild trust — and reach new audiences — is through engaged journalism. There are varying definitions of engagement across journalism, but the definition that most closely fits what this section is about comes from Lindsay Green-Barber of Impact Architects: “Engaged journalism is an inclusive practice that prioritizes the information needs and wants of the community members it serves, creates collaborative space for the audience in all aspects of the journalistic process, and is dedicated to building and preserving trusting relationships between journalists and the public.”

Engaged journalism strategies such as prioritizing and collaborating with audiences were used by participants in the Table Stakes Local News Transformation Program, a group that comprises more than 200 for-profit and nonprofit local and community news organizations, including newspapers, digital start-ups, public media and commercial TV. Their successes were curated in the Digital Transformation Guide from the American Press Institute.

Making the shift to prioritizing audiences will touch all parts of your journalistic process — from the issues you choose to cover to how you share the stories you tell.

To truly prioritize audiences, your organization may need to change some of its most fundamental processes. How do you decide what is newsworthy? How do you keep your own biases in check during reporting and editing? How do you create journalism with — and not just for — your community?

For legacy media, prioritizing audiences also likely means repairing past harm. How well do you understand your organization’s reputation in the community? How can you reconcile the harm you’ve caused your community? How do you think about the ways your journalism helps your community and its members? How well does your staff reflect your community?

Collaborate with your audiences

In addition to fostering trust and meaningful relationships, collaborating with your audiences to create journalism helps ensure what you’re generating is useful.

That process can take many forms. Your organization may want to survey the community or hold listening sessions to better understand the information people say they need in their daily lives. You might want to form a community advisory board, which can inform you about a specific topic or your overall coverage. Some organizations even consider these processes as having the community become the assigning editor.

The Kansas City Star, an alumnus of the Gannett-McClatchy Table Stakes Program, participated in the Mobilizing News Alumni Sprint and developed “Voices of Kansas City,” a community conversation project. It was a continuation of its work to repair the damage the newspaper had done to Black communities by perpetuating systemic racism. Based on what they heard in community listening sessions, the newspaper’s editor and Black Community Advisory Board decided to focus the first season on Black business owners.

The Star then partnered with local nonprofit Kansas City GIFT to identify who to feature and with 90.1 FM KKFI, Kansas City’s community radio station, to share content. They received positive feedback from the business owners featured. A second season focused on activists. The lessons and sources from both seasons informed continuing coverage, including a twice-a-week series of mini-profiles on Kansas Citians from various backgrounds.

In North Carolina, The Fayetteville Observer, a UNC Table Stakes alumnus, was also working to build trust and meaningful relationships with Black communities when it joined the Mobilizing News Alumni Sprint. The Observer’s listening sessions focused on Black professional women ages 30-45.

At its first listening session, an emotional conversation about how Black women can support one another inspired participant Tiffany Campbell. She organized 100 Professional Black Women in Black, an event that featured photoshoots of these 100 women, including one at the historic Market House, where enslaved people had been sold. She later brought these women together in a Facebook group and organized a similar event for Black men.

Try it out

To get started with community listening, you can use an adapted version of the workbook used by the Kansas City Star, The Fayetteville Observer and other teams in the Mobilizing News Sprint for Table Stakes alumni. The workbook will challenge you to center your communities in your outreach, relationships and reporting.

For this self-guided version, we’ve added recommended readings for each week that we suggest you explore before jumping into the flaring and assignments. The workbook can be an individual or team endeavor. If your newsroom is not currently doing this type of work, an individual approach may help create a proof of concept that can help garner the necessary buy-in for more extensive engagement work.

In either case, this workbook is meant to be just a starting point. We encourage you to explore the API Inclusion Index — a key inspiration for the sprint cohort — for a more holistic and lasting approach to covering communities of color.

Do you want to improve your engaged journalism strategies? API offers customized training on the Inclusion Index, among many other topics.

Want to know more about the Digital Transformation Guide from API? Register for our virtual session at 1 p.m. ET on May 1. You’ll get the chance to talk to organizations featured in the guide and learn more about how you can bring these strategies to your organization.