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 Jane Elizabeth, Tom Rosenstiel, Maria Ivancin, Kevin Loker, Stephen Lacy, Jeff Sonderman, and Katie Yaeger

Fact-checking and accountability journalism: Popular, effective — but sometimes misunderstood

Most people who studied journalism or communication at a broad selection of schools across the United States believe that fact-checking journalism — a relatively new form of accountability reporting in politics — is effective at improving political discourse, according to a new survey. About two-thirds of graduates of communication and journalism, or 65 percent, across […]
By Tom Rosenstiel, Jeff Sonderman, Kevin Loker, Maria Ivancin, and Nina Kjarval

Twitter and life

Just over half of social media users (53%) have a Twitter account and most (67%) have had it for more than 3 years, according to the survey. An even wider world of people encounter Twitter without using it. Of all Twitter users, 68% see hashtags and Twitter handles or tweets displayed on TV, 61% in […]
By Tom Rosenstiel, Jeff Sonderman, Kevin Loker, Maria Ivancin, and Nina Kjarval

How non-Twitter users are different

The survey also probed non-Twitter social media users about why they don’t use the social network for news. People offered a range of answers, with no one standing far above any other. Perhaps the most striking result is that these are news consumers who feel they get sufficient news elsewhere. Indeed, the largest number of […]
By Tom Rosenstiel, Jeff Sonderman, Kevin Loker, Maria Ivancin, and Nina Kjarval

How false information spreads and gets corrected on Twitter

One question some people have about the openness of the web, including social networks, is about navigating information that proves to be false. The survey probed Twitter users about that experience as well. The findings suggest that there is some self-correcting element to Twitter and to the web generally, born in part out of the […]
By Tom Rosenstiel, Jeff Sonderman, Kevin Loker, Maria Ivancin, and Nina Kjarval

How Twitter users interact with brands and promoted tweets

Most Twitter users (77%) have interacted with a promoted tweet in some way. The largest number, 56%, say they have noticed a promoted tweet, topic or account. Fifteen percent have clicked on a promoted tweet, 8% on a tweet under a promoted hashtag. Almost as many, 7%, have followed a promoted account and 6% have […]
By Tom Rosenstiel, Jeff Sonderman, Kevin Loker, Maria Ivancin, and Nina Kjarval

Twitter and breaking news

While people end up following news in general on Twitter and use the social network “to pass the time,” the immediacy of using the network to track news in real time, as noted above, is one of the primary reasons that people say they use Twitter and the most common form of news that is […]
By Tom Rosenstiel, Jeff Sonderman, Kevin Loker, Maria Ivancin, and Nina Kjarval

Who people follow and discover on Twitter

On Twitter consumers can discover new voices, authors, news providers and take following actions as a result. The survey tried to track those patterns by asking what kind of news sources people follow and what kind they had discovered. The findings reveal that, to a substantial degree, Twitter is a way that news consumers follow […]
By Tom Rosenstiel, Jeff Sonderman, Kevin Loker, Maria Ivancin, and Nina Kjarval

How Twitter users follow the news

People using social media as a news source can design their own news agenda — identifying the sources and topics they want to follow. This has led to speculation that people will become narrow in their interests without the agenda-setting influence of news organizations. The survey probed this notion in various ways, including by asking […]
By Tom Rosenstiel, Jeff Sonderman, Kevin Loker, Maria Ivancin, and Nina Kjarval

How people use Twitter in general

In general, all three core groups studied — Twitter users, non-Twitter users on social media and social media users overall — consume a good deal of news. In all, 77% of all social media users said they keep up with the news at least once a day, a number that was similar (76%) for non-Twitter […]
By Tom Rosenstiel, Jeff Sonderman, Kevin Loker, Maria Ivancin, and Nina Kjarval

Twitter and the News: How people use the social network to learn about the world

Overview How does Twitter change the way people get news? What kinds of thought leaders, journalists and organizations do people follow on the network? How are these Twitter followers different than those on other social networks? And how are people reacting to added elements on Twitter, such as advertising and promoted tweets? At a moment […]