Civic Discourse & Democracy

The American Press Institute is convening its second API Local News Summit of 2025, addressing a challenge shared by local and community-based media of all types.

At the American Press Institute, we believe the need for more engaged and informed communities will continue to grow. It’s why we focus on the role the press can play in community and civic life, and in facilitating discussions across communities with all of their varied voices and constituencies.

We’ve gathered reflections from researchers in social science who have attended recent API Local News Summits, where they had the chance to interact with and explore how their work helps — and can be improved by insights from — local journalism.

The press will be much more effective in serving people and strengthening democracy if it learns from what researchers are learning. Among the examples and takeaways, you will find that news leaders and non-news experts alike value the opportunity to think differently about the challenges in front of them, about how local news can change and how research can ask different questions.

We'll share some of the resources, tools and lessons learned from our training sessions and research help desk. We hope you can use these as you plan your continuing accountability coverage and start thinking about the next election on the horizon.

When community members are no longer voters, their needs become diffuse once again and there is no clear, focusing mandate. So many newsrooms slip back into the usual: politics coverage driven by politicians and press releases. How do we avoid that backslide?

How can we avoid that backslide this time? 

What news organizations continue to do in the days and weeks ahead will matter more than ever. They will bring people into community conversations or exclude them. They will create understanding or sow confusion.

With November fast-approaching, we are re-upping both Election Day and post-election resources that news leaders may want to use.

AP has expanded explanatory reporting efforts to debunk elections misinformation and reach as many people as possible with the facts they need.

Longtime philanthropic supporters of journalism are doubling down on local journalism specifically—and encouraging others to join them.