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 Kevin Loker

Coming soon: How African Americans and Hispanics consume news and view coverage

Earlier this year the American Press Institute partnered with the Associated Press and NORC at the University Chicago to form the Media Insight Project. The initiative’s first piece of survey research found Americans becoming increasingly comfortable using technology in ways that take advantage of the strengths of each medium and each device — a phenomenon […]
By Kevin Loker

Making local sponsored content: 10 good questions with Local News Now

Read any recent headlines on native advertising or sponsored content and you’ll likely see reference to national and other large publishers experimenting with the content form. BuzzFeed is perhaps the most associated with native ads, with New York Times, Washington Post and even platforms like Medium also innovating with storytelling from advertisers. The major push […]
By Kevin Loker

Appendix: More resources on journalism events

We recommend: The eight categories of journalism events, a blog post by Josh Stearns, director of journalism and sustainability at the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation. The groupings are a helpful for looking at what is possible. You might also enjoy his 17 lessons for local news events, a quick list of tips helpful for new […]
By Kevin Loker

The best strategies for generating revenue through events

The numbers are in on news organizations earning money by producing events – and the revenue is significant.
By Kevin Loker

Build your events strategy around your existing strengths

Events are a natural fit at news organizations because of their strengths and their role in their communities. Local news organizations have three major assets when it comes to producing events. The first is market penetration. Few organizations in geographic areas can claim to reach people in the way a local news publishers’ circulation does. […]
By Kevin Loker

Leverage existing news audiences for events and grow new ones

An events strategy needs to start by asking “For whom?” Gathering as much information as a local news publisher can about its events’ potential audiences helps to create the best format, timing and location for individual events. Deep knowledge of an audience is also essential for wooing sponsors, advertisers and partners. A couple different sources […]
By Kevin Loker

Identify and hold off other event-marketing competitors

Publishers who don’t produce their own events risk allowing competitors to enter the market and capture that revenue. The competition is other events and other activities Unlike a publishers’ news business, the competition for events in most cases is not coming from another news organization. It’s other events, and scarcity of time. Think about it […]
By Kevin Loker

How to take a creative approach to events revenue for publishers

Expos and more traditional journalistic events such as debates and conferences around news topics can earn revenue, but they aren’t the only ways to come up with significant events earnings. Below are a few more unusual ideas news publishers have found effective. Create “something out of nothing” In any business it is good to get […]
By Kevin Loker

Weigh different pricing strategies for events

The significant revenue is in event sponsorships. A publisher could have a great event idea, but the math still needs to work. Using a spreadsheet to weigh possible revenue versus expenses is crucial to event success. There are a number of things to consider. Strategize between offering standard sponsor packages or “listening first” Making the […]
By Kevin Loker

Go all-in on event promotions

Event promotion, internally and externally, is vital to event success and growth as a significant source of revenue. Ultimately, for most events to work, we heard consistently that publishers need to do two things 1) get as many people to know about the event as possible, and 2) get full newsroom support. Organizational structure and […]