Tuesday, June 24 · 12 – 1pm EDT | Register here

Join the American Press Institute and News Revenue Hub for an “ask me anything” session with Jake Wasserman about how The Forward uses unique audience personas to grow and better serve its multigenerational community.

The Forward is a 128-year-old legacy Jewish publication with a history of service journalism that has always extended far beyond the page, from helping immigrants get acclimated to the United States to getting kids into summer camp in the Catskills. It stopped printing in 2019 during its digital transition and dropped its paywall four years later. For the first time in its history, Forward journalism became free and memberships replaced subscriptions. Come to hear its story, including how the team develops its voice on social platforms and uses audience personas to grow readership across generations on Instagram — and how this strategy relates to membership growth. We’ll also discuss how the team positions their 100-year-old archives, and how these various efforts serve different audience members.

And rather than only ask our questions, we’ll save much of the time for your questions. What do you want to know about:

  • Audience personas and how they might influence content, post format and fundraising decisions on social media?
  • How sharing an organization’s own history helps with fundraising across generations?
  • Priorities for revenue generation at a community publication serving a widespread audience in the United States?

The session is the second in a collaboration between News Revenue Hub and API.

The arrangement combines the expertise of both organizations. In early June, the American Press Institute will convene nearly 70 news leaders and experts from non-news spaces for our Local News Summit on Civic Discourse Across Generations. The conversation follows an April summit about local identity, history and sustainability — about how media might embrace identity and leverage history, nostalgia, archives, community markers and partnerships to build products, services and experiences that drive revenue.

Attendees can expect 30 minutes of moderated conversation with the speakers, followed by 30 minutes of Q&A with the audience.

Questions for the speaker or comments for the organizers? Submit them when you register on Eventbrite.

Speaker

Jake Wasserman is engagement editor at The Forward. In his role, he coaches the editorial team on integrating audience feedback into their reporting, and facilitates community engagement and growth through social media and online platforms. He also optimizes stories for search engines and social media, using data-driven tools and strategies. Previously, he was the inaugural engagement reporting fellow at Mountain State Spotlight, a nonprofit investigative newsroom in West Virginia, and a consultant with the Black-led West Virginia media collective, Black By God. He also worked on the Electionland tip desk at ProPublica, monitoring voting problems in West Virginia and Kentucky during the 2020 general election.

Moderator

Liz Worthington  is Director of Product Strategy at the American Press Institute. She’s spent a decade working with publishers on content and product strategy, analytics, audience engagement and source tracking primarily through API’s tools Metrics for News and Source Matters. Prior to API, Liz worked as a reporter, editor and editorial trainer for hyperlocal startups and community newsrooms in Virginia, South Carolina, Connecticut, New Jersey and New York.

This session is great for:

  • Development leaders seeking new ways to frame and show their value in a community
  • Engagement editors and membership specialists looking at how to grow new audiences on social media
  • Editorial leaders or in bridge roles that involve coordination with business strategy