Welcome to our June Need to Know series on supporting culture of learning and skill-sharing in news organizations. Each week, members of the 2024-25 Table Stakes Alumni Advisory Board will introduce you to best practices developed by news leaders across the country and share ideas on how to start creating similar strategies for your teams.
We’re all curious — that’s what binds us together in the journalism industry. News organizations are inherently interesting and exciting places to work, simply because of the range of things we get to learn and the colleagues whom we learn from.
I’m grateful that lifelong learning and continuous development are shared values in our line of work. And I believe the connections we share can help us be more resourceful and engaged, especially when there’s adversity.
While speaking to news leaders ahead of the API Local News Summit on fostering belonging and collaboration in 2024, many noted the common challenges we face: a constant crunch for time, limited capacity and competing demands.
Developing a strong culture of learning emerged as a positive theme among news organizations that were able to weather the storms and support their staff through change.
We continued the summit’s work by focusing on opportunities to connect and collaborate in news organizations and assembled a working group of news leaders determined to find solutions to help their peers navigate the process of building capacity and strengthening cultures of learning.
This month, advisory board members representing the Table Stakes Local News Transformation Program will share tips and experiences from news leaders who seek to empower staff with opportunities to learn and build skills. We hope you’ll take these ideas and try them out in ways that work for your organization.
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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.
Steps news organizations can take to set up their own community advisory committees based on lessons from the Pittsburgh Inclusion Index cohort.
These programs, both evolutions of long-standing journalism industry efforts, reaffirm API’s commitment to fostering a more inclusive, transparent and accountable media landscape.
