Kevin Loker

Director of Strategic Partnerships and Research

Kevin Loker serves as director of strategic partnerships and research for the American Press Institute. He helps API collaborate with and complement the work of other organizations that want to improve journalism and its business. In addition, he leads research initiatives and projects on emerging challenges in journalism that advance API’s core program areas.

Kevin’s work in partnerships spans several types of work. He has helped API secure and develop grant-funded programs that support news transformation, including a Community Listening Fellowship for journalists and a Listening & Sustainability Lab for publishers of color. He has overseen programs that have distributed to local news organizations more than $300,000 in funding to experiment with audience-centered journalism. He has organized nearly a dozen invite-only summits on other emerging challenges in journalism, such as reimagining opinion sections and developing reader revenue.

Kevin has also served on research teams since API’s reinvention as an applied think tank. He’s contributed to more than a dozen national studies on news audiences with the Media Insight Project, API’s joint research initiative with Associated Press NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, as well as research into the ethics of philanthropic funding of journalism. In 2020, he served as a research assistant for the fourth edition of The Elements of Journalism: What Newspeople Should Know and the Public Should Expect (2021).

Before API, Kevin worked in digital and membership services for the Online News Association. He is a former contributor to 10,000 Words, a media industry blog. Together with his wife Laura, he received a 2017 Catholic Press Association Award for an email newsletter for Catholics.

Email Kevin at kevin.loker@pressinstitute.org or follow him @kevinloker.

By Stephanie Castellano and Kevin Loker

How listening informed La Estrella de Tucsón’s reporting during COVID-19

When COVID-19 infection rates began rising in southern Arizona in early spring, two things quickly became clear: one, predominantly Hispanic communities were suffering more than white communities, and two, people in those communities were desperate for reliable, relevant news — ideally, news in their native language. Prior to the pandemic, Liliana López Ruelas, Hispanic community […]
By Stephanie Castellano and Kevin Loker

How Documented uses WhatsApp to reach local immigrant communities

As the coronavirus pandemic has disrupted daily life in the U.S. and around the world, many news organizations have turned to texting services to reach their communities with critical news and information. Platforms like Reach, GroundSource and Subtext have helped news outlets learn about audiences’ information needs and address them directly via SMS. Some news […]
By Amy Kovac-Ashley and Kevin Loker

API provides listening fellows free access to remote engagement tools via ReachNC

To support its community listening fellows and their newsrooms during the coronavirus pandemic, the American Press Institute will adjust grant plans and pay for all fellows to access the listening and engagement tool suite, Reach. The move supports up to all 10 newsrooms in the API Community Listening Fellowship, a grant-funded project to help news […]
By Amy Kovac-Ashley and Kevin Loker

API election network for local news leaders gains two community managers

The American Press Institute today announced the addition of two community managers, Andrew Rockway and John Hernandez, to its project to connect local newsroom leaders and experts ahead of the 2020 elections. Together, they will help newsroom leaders share with and learn from one another and experts about effective and efficient ways to combat false […]
By Amy Kovac-Ashley and Kevin Loker

Ten engagement leaders share insights through API Community Listening Fellowship

The American Press Institute is grateful for the contribution of 10 engaged journalism experts who are advising journalists and news organizations in our Community Listening Fellowship. The fellowship, supported by a one-time grant from the News Integrity Initiative at the Craig Newmark Graduate School for Journalism at CUNY, empowers 10 journalists and their newsrooms to […]
By Kevin Loker

How might we reimagine opinion journalism for our digital, polarized age? Reflections from news leaders

In the age of social media, cable talk shows and fast-moving news cycles, what value does opinion journalism, including the opinion and editorial pages of newspaper publishing, bring to the lives of people in a community? Modern technology has surely opened up civic debate. Editorials and columns in newspapers, and opinion essays in magazines, suffered […]
By Amy Kovac-Ashley and Kevin Loker

Meet API’s 2019-20 community listening fellows

Ten journalists from news organizations across the country will receive support from the American Press Institute for year-long projects that help their newsrooms start more of their journalism from community listening. The journalists, or 2019-20 Community Listening Fellows, will receive in-person and remote training and support on how to employ listening strategies to inform their […]
By Amy Kovac-Ashley and Kevin Loker

Apply now for year-long support to build community listening into your newsroom

The American Press Institute has opened applications for a new year-long program to support news organizations that want to build more of their journalism based on community listening. We’re looking for individuals who want their journalism to be better informed and inspired by their communities’ needs but who need guidance on strategies to make that […]
By Kevin Loker

To help reduce polarization, let’s re-envision news’ opinion sections

Many communities across the country today have unprecedented opportunity to converse with each other, understand one another’s views, and find workable solutions or approaches to the mutual challenges they face. At the same time, we all know this doesn’t always happen. At API, we’re interested in the role opinion journalism can play in facilitating better […]
By Kevin Loker and Amy Kovac-Ashley

Students can help address diversity and inclusivity in news — here’s one opportunity happening soon

In all our work with news organizations, increasing diversity in newsrooms and among audiences remains a challenge. Many newsrooms do not include voices that can speak to the experiences of the communities the media aspires to serve, and many people feel most news organizations do not address their needs or concerns. The issue cuts across […]