Where civic culture meets sustainability: Announcing API’s 2026 Local News Summits

2026 is a big year. An election. The continued rise of artificial intelligence. A semiquincentennial. 

It’s also our 80th birthday.

And as the American Press Institute marks 80 years, we’ll honor our legacy by continuing to respond to the evolving needs of news leaders. Today, we’re announcing that our API Local News Summits will explore three critical places where democracy and sustainability intersect: whether young people feel invited into civic life, whether local debate is healthier because of local media’s work and whether people can stay informed without walking away from the news altogether.

API Local News Summits are our highly participatory, invitation-based events that provide a welcoming and collaborative space for media leaders to think boldly about the role of the free press in the future of our communities. In continuity with our history, these two-day convenings serve today’s news leaders by giving them space for professional development in the context of addressing a challenge they are already actively working on.

The 2026 API Local News Summit series builds upon three years of insight into what local news leaders need now: connection across generations, clear impact measurement and resilience in a time of audience avoidance. 

We heard the need for these conversations throughout our programming, research and from partners of our tools in 2025. But it was especially apparent in our 2025 events — on local news and local identity; intergenerational connection; and belonging and local leadership — which touched more than 120 news organizations and more than 180 participants.

So our team will host three API Local News Summits in 2026:

• Youth Trust and Civic Resilience in March 2026 (West Palm Beach, Fla.). This two-day summit will identify and advance solutions that help local news organizations build trusted relationships with young people, empowering them to shape their community’s future.
  
• Measuring Impact for Civic Discourse in June 2026 (Pittsburgh). This two-day summit will identify and advance solutions that help local news organizations track engagement and represent voices across the geographies they serve.
• News Avoidance and Digital Wellness in October 2026 (Boise, Idaho). This two-day summit will identify and advance solutions that help local news leaders design experiences and products that encourage individual and community well-being.

Each summit is a focused learning experience, intentionally designed through deeply listening to the community of news leaders API serves best. While each summit can stand on its own, collectively, they form a unified experience and narrative arc. Participants move from engaging new civic stakeholders to understanding and communicating their public impact, to designing news that supports well-being in a digitally fatigued world. 

For us, and as we’ve heard from previous summiters, these challenge-oriented convenings are unique leadership development opportunities for those building the future of local news — one experiment, one conversation and one behavior at a time. 

What makes them unique?

• The summits start with the recognition that local news leaders need spaces oriented by common challenges, not necessarily by their platform, news identity or tax status. In such curated spaces, there is room for bigger questions. Each news leader steps back from daily crises in order to work with peers on long-term strategies that support both community resilience and the future of local news and information.
  
• The programs are tailored to the people coming. We interview and survey the news leaders who will attend. Their values, goals, opportunities and challenges inform how we then survey all summiters and design the participatory learning experience.
  
• These summits are truly participatory — and optimized for how adults learn. These are not panel after panel gatherings. They are roomwide conversations, small groups and reflective workshops for the individual leader. The approach — and the limit of approximately 60 participants — lets leaders apply ideas to their specific challenges and connect with the right people who can help them after they return home.
  
• These summits surface innovative work in local media, but also relevant and practical ideas outside of journalism. We recognize journalists alone may not have the answers, nor are they alone in the stakes for community life. About eight participants attend from outside of news but with relevant expertise for the topic — fellow travelers on the challenge from fields like social psychology, computer science, conflict resolution, civically-engaged nonprofits or other fields.
  
• These summits aren’t stand-alone moments. They’re part of API’s learning architecture, which feeds insights into our tools, experiments, peer cohorts and the ongoing support we offer across the journalism ecosystem.

What makes our 2026 Local News Summit Series different is not just the quality of each conversation; it’s the intentionality of the year-long API learning journey for summiters and the local news field at large, a journey that includes wider conversations, case studies and provocations, as well as follow-up programming. We begin with the question of affiliation: how is local news building trust with the next generation of civic participants? We move to accountability: how are we measuring the impact of that trust and making it visible? And we close with adaptation: how are we designing news experiences that honor both our democratic role and the digital wellness of our communities?

This isn’t accidental. It mirrors what research shows about behavior change and how learning actually lasts: to start with identity and values, progress to systems for feedback and ground in practices that leaders can apply immediately. 

The civic and sustainability stakes are clear in each, as are what we anticipate leaders will leave with:

• Democracy needs young people who see themselves as empowered participants in local life. Sustainability requires a next generation of readers, donors and supporters who feel connected early. Leaders at our summit on Youth Trust and Civic Resilience will leave with tools and models for engaging teens and young adults to build mutual trust and long-term audience connection.
  
• Democracy needs local information environments that help people understand issues, each other, and how to act. Sustainability requires clear evidence of a news organization’s impact on civic life to win support from funders, sponsors and partners. Leaders at our summit on Measuring Impact for Civic Discourse will leave with strategies and peer examples for demonstrating reach, inclusion and effect — tools that help attract support and guide decisions.
  
• Democracy needs residents who stay engaged instead of tuning out completely. Sustainability, as people create boundaries around their tech, requires products and experiences that don’t overload people and drive them away, but keep them coming back. Leaders at our summit on News Avoidance and Digital Wellness will leave with product and editorial approaches that reduce information fatigue and increase the well-being of those the news aims to serve.

Many things will change in the coming year, we can all be assured. But API’s commitment to helping news leaders respond, adapt and steward remains. With these challenges as our event focuses in 2026, we hope local news in their communities, as a pillar of local life and democracy, remains for the long haul as well.

If you’re a newsroom leader building civic culture, innovating in impact or rethinking how you show up in people’s lives, these summits are for you. If you’re a funder, partner or fellow traveler from outside journalism but you see yourself in this work, we invite you to support and help us shape it. 

You can sign up for summit updates here, or reach out to talk about collaboration, support or participation. We’d love to hear from you.