Thank you to these 2020 collaborators for strengthening journalism

2020 was a hinge moment in American history and for journalism. As the year passes, we wanted to take a moment to thank those with whom we were fortunate enough to collaborate. If fact-based journalism is to survive and serve democracy, it will owe much to the expertise, dedication, insight, leadership and passion of those people like these.

In our work at the American Press Institute, trying to help news enterprises of all types better understand and serve their communities, we worked in the past year with hundreds of people and organizations. That included formal partnerships with about 50 different individuals and with teams from more than a dozen journalism support organizations. We would like to recognize them here. If you don’t know them, this is an introduction. We wish we could name them all.

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The 2020 election was an all-hands-on-deck moment of collaboration. We worked with two skilled community managers to steer the Trusted Elections Network, itself a collaboration of 284 journalists and experts in misinformation, election administration and other topics. Andrew Rockway co-managed the activities, drawing on expertise in dialogue and deliberation to pull together strong stakeholders and frameworks for the project. John Hernandez, our second community manager, helped focus our work on information needs and made the group and grantee cohort a prime place for exchange among peers. Much of their work included digital convenings with partners such as the Solutions Journalism Network, First Draft, ProPublica, the Associated Press, Data & Society and many others. The network also resulted in a microgrants program, with contributions from three funders, that supported 36 news organizations. We’re pleased to announce John has joined API’s full-time staff in 2021 to work on projects and communities beyond the election and that Andrew continues to work with us as a consultant on more convenings.

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API’s Metrics for News team earned a grant from Craig Newmark Philanthropies to support a cohort of 60 news organizations dissecting audience analytics to assess and improve their election reporting. Emma Stiefel and Brad Gerick helped set these new partners up for success by configuring their analytics and Metrics for News dashboards to track their content and key audiences they hoped to attract and grow. Meena Thiruvengadam ably supported these news organizations, helping them understand and share insights amid the stresses of the year. And, MFN intern Patricia Wei helped research, create and share resources to support the cohort as well as contribute code to the app itself.

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In addition, we were honored to be the fiscal sponsor of and a collaborator with ElectionSOS, an initiative of the consultancy Hearken and Trusting News. The initiative provided resources and support to journalists responding to election information needs, before and after Election Day. Trusting News (itself fiscally hosted at API) played an important role in helping the Trusted Elections Network, ElectionSOS and its own partners take action in demonstrating their election coverage’s credibility. Kamila Jambulatova, part of the ElectionSOS team, now also provides marketing support to Trusting News. Others who contributed to the Trusting News team last year include Katie Hawkins-Gaar and Julia Haslanger, who assisted with training and outreach.

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One of the largest programs API supports is Table Stakes, an intensive change management program for local news now completed by more than 120 news organizations. As we took a lead coordinating role, we could not have been more glad to work with the Maynard Institute in making diversity, equity and inclusion central to the goal-making and participation of the partner news organizations. The coaches for the Major Market Program — Ashley Alvarado, Nation Hahn, Sara Lomax-Reese, Mizell Stewart III, Eric Ulken and Mackenzie Warren — and the senior coaches Charlie Baum and Quentin Hope are close collaborators, dedicating hours amid the pandemic and their own lives to help these six news organizations realize their goals. Shannan Bowen and Becca Aaronson also contributed their expertise to the teams. We know the staffs of Table Stakes programs at University of North Carolina, Arizona State University and the Poynter Institute have done the same for the dozens of news organizations they collectively supported. And working with News Catalyst, we’re inspired by how they are reducing tech and tool burdens for all.

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Community listening was another skill people in news media gained more fluency with in 2020. We’re grateful for the 10 expert advisers in our Community Listening Fellowship: again Ashley Alvarado and Nation Hahn, as well as Sarah Alvarez, Stephanie Carson, Corinne Chin, Michelle Ferrier, Antonia Gonzales, Andrea Hart, Tasneem Raja and Vanessa Vancour. They wisely helped news organizations adapt as 2020 unfolded, and Reach NC helped many of them make smooth transitions to digital listening tools such as texting. Cole Goins, a now longtime collaborator of API and our Thought Leader Summits, artfully helped us convert our summit format into digital convenings on sustainability through listening.

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As the year ended, we were pleased to expand this listening and sustainability work. Together with Borealis Philanthropy’s Racial Equity in Journalism Fund, our new Listening & Sustainability Labwill focus advising for five publishers of color pursuing the connection of engagement and revenue, including in exploring different revenue streams with support from the Revenue Lab at Texas Tribune. Michael Grant, founder of Get Current Studio, is already shaping the orientation and audience research phase of this work.

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Our continuing work also matters. One of those relationships is with the NC Local News Lab Fund, which has supported our work with independent publishers in North Carolina on their subscriptions, membership and engagement strategies. Jaime Cardenas, Federica Cherubini, Steve Yaeger and Jim Gorman provided meaningful counsel for four of these news organizations. Beyond North Carolina, we’re grateful to have learned from and supported advisers Letrell Crittenden and Emma Carew Grovum, who offered skills in engagement and digital transformation to additional outlets. Forthcoming research through our Media Insight Project, a partnership with AP-NORC and API, will break new ground in the area of trust, loyalty and growing audience.

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API also leans on the wisdom of a dedicated and gifted network of “curators,” who increase the intelligence that we try to share with the rest of the field. Tom Huang thoughtfully edited Better News, shaping its “wins” from news organizations in Table Stakes, and our team of wise resource curators (Lizzy Hazeltine, Kim Bui, Charo Henríquez, and again Ashley Alvarado) captured practical resources from other sources as the year unfolded. As we all juggle our work and life schedules, we’re ever more thankful for Michael O’Connell’s work to share some API partner “wins” via the “It’s All Journalism” podcast. Elise Czajkowski and Mollie Bryant are now part of the editorial team that make the Need to Know email newsletter part of the routine of more than 10,000 people each day. The Poynter Institute has been a key partner as we support fact-checking, and we’re grateful for Mark Stencel’s collaboration in researching ways publishers can improve “news fluency.” Lizzy Hazeltine, Fiona Morgan, Julie Hirshan Hart and Anita Li have also contributed articles and essays that surface innovative work happening all across the industry.

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