This is the third installment of a column from API Executive Director Tom Rosenstiel, published in partnership with the Poynter Institute, about the press and politics, culture and media ethics, technology and the search for sustainability for news. Read the first column here and the second here. Journalists — at least good ones — believe they […]

How local news is recovering from a year of crises, frameworks to track impact and DEI, and can Axios go local

Journalism is an economically precarious profession particularly for local media organizations, and that fact alone is stressful enough. Add unpredictable work hours, lack of resources, and a lethal worldwide pandemic, and we’ve got a crisis on our hands. Or do we? If a thousand trees fall in the forest and no one acknowledges it — […]

In April, The Washington Post made an unusual request to local journalists across America: Contribute freelance articles to a special Washington Post Magazine issue designed to “show what the American public misses when thousands of stories are not told.” This fall, those stories will fill an entire issue showcasing local issues that have been underreported […]

On February 13, the Charleston Post & Courier published an investigative project that examined what happens to South Carolina communities where no viable local media still exist. Not coincidentally, the next day the paper announced a fund drive to raise $100,000 in 100 days to help pay for their own investigative journalism, which, as Executive […]

For many local newsrooms across the country, it took a global pandemic to demonstrate how quickly and successfully newsroom leaders could restructure their coverage to truly meet readers’ needs. Reporters were reassigned to urgent topics of the moment: health and the medical community, racial justice and disparity, unemployment and business. Two young reporters at the […]

Although not always the originator of misinformation, social media communities are an amplifier for conspiracy theories and disinformation campaigns — and they’re also victims of those lies. The misinformation surrounding COVID-19, vaccines, Black Lives Matter protests and other major news events have demonstrated that “fake news” in your Facebook feed and your Nextdoor group isn’t […]

The critical issue of diversity in local newsrooms and in community coverage was never more apparent than during the national racial reckoning of 2020. Now it’s up to those news organizations to make real and permanent improvements. Those actions also represent an urgent business imperative. As the demographics of the country change, a failure to […]

News organizations often get an “audience bump” during major breaking news, but the COVID-19 pandemic offered something unique: a prolonged news event that had readers eager to read every word, every story, and actually become engaged with the content and the publisher. Here was a once-in-a-lifetime story that is important to every human on the […]

More than a year after the global pandemic became official, local journalism still grapples with the fallout — not only from the coronavirus but also by an intense nationwide racial reckoning, regional disasters including fires and storms, and ever-present gun violence and mass shootings. The flood of news events over the past year also exacerbated […]