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, 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 […]
By Tom Rosenstiel, Jeff Sonderman, Kevin Loker, Maria Ivancin, and Nina Kjarval

Methodology

This study was conducted by DB5 using a 15-minute online survey among two groups: General social media users (n=1,000) defined as those who used some sort of social media platform at least weekly. These individuals were recruited through an online panel of adults (18 years of age and older) across the U.S. who are nationally […]
By Tom Rosenstiel, Jeff Sonderman, Kevin Loker, Maria Ivancin, and Nina Kjarval

Recommendations for publishers

The results of this survey make clear an intimate connection between Twitter users and news, and suggest some ways in which publishers can take best advantage of the platform. That connection comes through in various data points. Among them, nearly 9 in 10 Twitter users (86%) say they use Twitter for news, almost the same […]
By Tom Rosenstiel, Maria Ivancin, Kevin Loker, Stephen Lacy, Jeff Sonderman, and Katie Yaeger

Who is a ‘journalist’ today, where they work and what they do

Significant numbers of journalism and communication graduates now practice what they consider journalism, even though they don’t work for traditional news organizations, our survey of journalism school graduates found. The survey probed this phenomenon with several questions, including asking people to explain in very granular terms what skills they employ in their work and what […]
By Tom Rosenstiel, Maria Ivancin, Kevin Loker, Stephen Lacy, Jeff Sonderman, and Katie Yaeger

How these graduates feel about their work and the state of journalism

One question virtually everyone in media hears at one point or another is whether the world of journalism, with all the possibilities and disruption caused by technology, is getting better or worse. The survey asked a series of questions that probed this. The answers varied significantly depending on where people worked in the media, their […]
By Tom Rosenstiel, Maria Ivancin, Kevin Loker, Stephen Lacy, Jeff Sonderman, and Katie Yaeger

Skills, knowledge and comfort levels with job skills

The survey also probed a series of questions about a range of different skill sets and asked people about their knowledge and comfort levels with them. One question in that sequence asked people about some two dozen skills that they might use in whatever their field and asked how important they thought each one was. […]
By Tom Rosenstiel, Maria Ivancin, Kevin Loker, Stephen Lacy, Jeff Sonderman, and Katie Yaeger

What journalists encounter in their jobs and careers

The survey also went deeper to look at the experiences of these journalism and communication graduates in their work. That began by asking people (regardless of where they work) what they had personally experienced in their jobs in the last five years. The results might be interpreted as relatively grim, but again age made a […]