API helps 16 organizations deepen community engagement through collaborations with content creators and trusted messengers

The 16 organizations in the American Press Institute's 2025 Influencers Learning Cohort will deepen engagement with the communities they serve through new experiments with creators and trusted messengers. 

Their plans — each supported by a $3,000 grant from API and refined with API's help — will build connections with new audiences and serve communities by prioritizing storytelling and positive impact. This learning cohort is an expansion of API’s program to help local and community media partner with content creators and trusted messengers. 

“Each of these experiments gives us a clearer picture of how local influence actually works. And each inspires the question: How might newsrooms be part of that ecosystem without trying to control it?” said Samantha Ragland, API’s vice president of Journalism Strategy. “As is true with all of API’s experiment funds, we’re excited to learn with and from this cohort, and to keep sharing those lessons with the field. “

In May, API led the organizations through interactive sessions to help them hone their vision and goals for the collaborations and plan for internal and external messaging. The lessons from these group calls and the organizations’ experiments will also be shared in resources that API offers the industry on building successful partnerships, such as in API’s Guide to influencer collaborations.

The American Press Institute supports media and journalism leaders by conducting research and developing programs and products to build successful, healthy news organizations. Community engagement is one of API’s main focus areas as we help news organizations build trusted relationships with people who live in the places that they care about.

Each news organization will test and learn from an influencer experiment in their communities:

• CalMatters (California) will help more Californians understand how the state's DMV repeatedly fails to act — letting reckless drivers keep their licenses and, too often, cause more deaths across the state — by sharing key findings from its investigation and broadening the project’s impact.
• Chattanooga Times Free Press (Tennessee) will grow its audiences for its What to Eat Next social accounts and newsletter.
• CivicLex (Kentucky) will inspire Lexington residents to become civically engaged by partnering with content creators to post about participating in a civic task, such as picking up litter, shadowing a local government official or solving a problem for their neighborhood.
• The Daily Collegian (Pennsylvania) will spotlight campus culture, student experiences and helpful resources for incoming students through collaborations with current and former Penn State students.
• El Toque (Florida) will encourage recently arrived Cuban immigrants in the U.S. to evaluate and recommend legal service providers through a new community-driven comparison platform.
• The Houston Chronicle (Texas) will partner with local food influencers to promote its dining content and to give a behind-the-scenes look at how it conducts restaurant reviews.
• Louisville Public Media (Kentucky) will reach Black, 20-something Louisvillians through reading recommendations, events and sharing positive, uplifting stories from LPM News.
• The Minnesota Star Tribune will increase listenership of its new “Worth It” podcast and work to grow the influence of its hosts among busy Minnesotans who seek advice on what’s worth their time, attention and money.
• Planeta Venus (Kansas) will partner with high schoolers to interview peers and neighbors and produce videos sharing their findings to better inform media across Kansas of Latinos’ news and information needs.
• Radio Catskill (New York) will more widely promote the station's offerings to new potential listeners and increase participation in its community survey.
• Technical.ly (Delaware, District of Columbia, Maryland and Pennsylvania) will help local audiences understand the startups growing in their communities through videos explaining entrepreneur ethics.
• Verified News Network (VNN) (Oklahoma) will help Indigenous families in Oklahoma to connect with their culture, history and community by partnering with two Native American dancers on Native-led wellness events in Tulsa.
• WBUR (Massachusetts) will reach and then work to deepen its engagement and connection with new audiences by collaborating with content creators on Field Guide to Boston reels.

API will also continue working with some members of its 2024 influencer cohort. 

“They are thoughtful and intentional, true believers in the value of community engagement as not just an editorial strategy but as an organizational culture,” Ragland said. 

Three alumni of the 2024 learning cohort are pursuing projects that will deepen their work in this area:

• THE CITY (New York) will continue its partnership with influencer Gerrie Lim, host of “Pigeon Post” on TikTok and Instagram, to create a series of videos explaining the complex components of the upcoming New York mayoral election.
• Factchequeado (California) will design a culturally relevant training for Latino content creators to identify and counter Spanish disinformation and communicate using data-based evidence.
• PublicSource (Pennsylvania) will build a diverse and regionally representative map of creators and trusted messengers in and around Pittsburgh.

“These two cohorts are collectively helping us prove that this work isn’t just about content distribution. It’s about shifting power to and posture within the communities we serve,” Ragland said. “Instead of broadcasting our news, we’re building that news alongside the community. Instead of content promotion, we’re activating community participation. These trusted messenger experiments, we hope, will move the local news field toward a more human and more reciprocal model of engagement.”

ABOUT THE AMERICAN PRESS INSTITUTE

The American Press Institute supports local and community-based media through research, programs and products that foster healthy, responsive and resilient news organizations. API envisions an inclusive democracy and society, where communities have the news and information they need to make decisions and thrive.  API is a national 501(c)(3) nonprofit educational organization affiliated with the News/Media Alliance.