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 Tom Rosenstiel, William Buzenberg, Marjorie Connelly, and Kevin Loker

How news organizations disclose relationships with funders

The study also looked at whether the work of news organizations intersected with their partners or funders beyond the collaboration. What happens, for instance, when a partner or a funder becomes the subject of a news story? Do the media organizations who have done stories on partners and funders note their relationship? The answer, the […]
By Tom Rosenstiel, William Buzenberg, Marjorie Connelly, and Kevin Loker

When individuals behind a donation are unknown, how news organizations proceed

One issue that has emerged in recent years regarding transparency is so-called donor-advised funds — financial vehicles that manage charitable donations made by individuals, families or organizations and under law do not have to disclose the identify of those contributors. The funds have become controversial because they can be a way for people or foundations […]
By Tom Rosenstiel, William Buzenberg, Marjorie Connelly, and Kevin Loker

How news organizations handle disclosure and transparency of funding

Transparency is considered a core element of journalism and an important feature of foundations. And while the most foundations and newsrooms report in this survey that they practice a high degree of transparency in their dealings with each other, few have concrete rules or written regulations regarding disclosure. When it comes to disclosure, the commercial […]
By Tom Rosenstiel, William Buzenberg, Marjorie Connelly, and Kevin Loker

Few news organizations have written guidelines about outside funding of news

One of the most striking findings from the research is there aren’t clear or universal rules of the road here — and very few written rules or guidelines on either side that could clarify roles and establish editorial firewalls. When it comes how to communicate with funders, for instance, 43 percent of nonprofit media outlets […]
By Tom Rosenstiel, William Buzenberg, Marjorie Connelly, and Kevin Loker

How often funders get to review content before it is published

What kind of communication do nonprofit news organizations and funders have about the news content that those funders underwrite? The answer varies depending on whether you ask grantors or grantees. In general, media organizations are less inclined to believe funders have input than funders are. For instance, when you ask nonprofit media outlets, just 6 […]
By Tom Rosenstiel, William Buzenberg, Marjorie Connelly, and Kevin Loker

How much funders specify the content news organizations produce

How specific are funders about the content they want to finance? General operating support grants, which allows a nonprofit media organization the most freedom regarding how it spends funds, was the most common type of grant cited by the nonprofit media organizations surveyed. Most foundations (57 percent) also said they had given grants to help […]
By Tom Rosenstiel, William Buzenberg, Marjorie Connelly, and Kevin Loker

The nature of grants that fund nonprofit news organizations

In all, more foundations surveyed said they are funding nonprofit journalism — both to nonprofit media and in collaborations with commercial media — than they were five years ago. That finding is consistent with what the Foundation Center, Knight Foundation and Media Impact Funders have found elsewhere. In all, 43 percent of funders said the […]
By Tom Rosenstiel, William Buzenberg, Marjorie Connelly, and Kevin Loker

Most funders think donations to news organizations meet their objectives

In the end, do funders think their underwriting of media is accomplishing what they want? More than half of foundations said they consider their media grantmaking a success; generally accomplishing their objectives, and a few exceeding them. Very few report falling short of their objectives. However, about 35 percent did not answer the question, skipping […]
By Kevin Loker

API to support WAN-IFRA prize for News in Education

We’re pleased to share during this News in Education Week that the American Press Institute will sponsor one of this year’s World Young Reader Prizes, the annual awards for excellence in youth engagement and news literacy from WAN-IFRA, the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers. Support from API will go to the awards’ News […]
By Kevin Loker

API to partner with Newsela, Rock the Vote for digital student election

At American Press Institute we have the benefit of building upon the work of the Newspaper Association of America’s Foundation, with which API merged with in 2012. Since the inception of the new API, we have remained committed to offering resources for teachers and newspaper professionals who want to teach about news and use it […]