We know from newsrooms using our Metrics for News program that accountability journalism — holding institutions of power to account through reporting — is a top driver of audience engagement. It also heightens reader trust, as audiences learn that their local newsrooms are looking out for their interests.

Try these API resources for improving accountability journalism:

• Participate in our 2021 Local News Ideas-to-Action Series, designed to help you learn, design and act on ways to center audiences in your local government and accountability reporting.
• See election coverage takeaways for journalists from our Trusted Elections Network, a network of newsroom leaders, civic and academic institutions and experts who worked throughout 2020 to address misinformation and other threats to secure, trusted elections.
• Read our report on “Strategies for truth-telling in a time of misinformation and polarization.”
• Learn how journalists can change the way they build stories to create organic news fluency.
• Find out the seven characteristics of effective accountability journalists.
• Read our white paper on the future of fact-checking.
• Check out our sections on accountability journalism and fact-checking on Better News, a repository of curated tips and case studies addressing common newsroom challenges.
• See takeaways from API’s Accountability Journalism and Fact-Checking Project, which concluded in 2020.