Community Engagement & Trust

A case study on one Pittsburgh-area newsroom's efforts to strengthen their connections with traditionally marginalized communities through the API Inclusion Index project.

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.

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? 

We see in research how trusted messengers matter for news that’s shared. We know Millennials and Gen Z pay for or donate to support email newsletters or video or audio from independent creators at higher rates than newspapers.

Election-focused flyers, postcards and print voter guides will add to the knowledge of how news organizations can deploy print to reach new audiences and deepen community ties.

Bringing reporters and residents together to listen and learn builds trust for news outlets while forging the social connections that help communities thrive.

Each year, these guides are our most popular and shared content on social media. They’ve also really helped us to grow our audience and develop deeper trust and connection with our readers year round.

About three quarters of Americans report a sense of non-belonging in their local communities. If people don’t feel a sense of affinity within their neighborhoods, [...]

How Factchequeado is working to close the gaps in the information needs of the Spanish-speaking population in the United States.

You cannot improve journalism — much less engagement, trust and inclusion — without building structures that hold news workers and outlets accountable for their actions.