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4 ways local news can build local identity — and bring in new revenue

American Press Institute · API Team · last updated

Local news can add value to our communities by helping people make informed decisions, building connections between the past and present, enriching conversations through complexity or nuance, and bridging individual differences. Leaning into local identity and history can move our journalism from ‘we provide facts alone’ to ‘we provide facts and serve other important community functions.’

We heard many opportunities for collaboration at our recent API Local News Summit on Local Identity, History and Sustainability. We gathered news leaders in Nashville who spoke with one another about how they have leveraged history, nostalgia, archives, community markers and partnerships to build products, services and experiences that drive revenue.

In one stakeholder call for the event, we asked a potential participant to define the dividing line between journalism and history. He noted he wasn’t sure there was one. But local journalism, as indeed the “first draft of history” in our communities, seems a field open to exploring that relationship further.

We asked four summit participants to share more about the ways they are fostering local identity within their communities:

  • How local media can harness the history trend. The brand heritage and archives agency History Factory helps organizations make the most of the public’s growing appetite for the past. Jason Dressel shares three steps news organizations can take to engage with their community’s history — and find new sources of revenue. 
  • Pairing subscriptions with a place of pride. For many Chicago residents, the neighborhood they live in is a central part of their identity. Block Club Chicago uses this acute understanding of readers’ affinity for their neighborhoods to fuel their most successful promotional campaign which typically drives up to a quarter of their annual subscription revenue, writes Lizzie Schiffman Tufano.
  • News philanthropy + historical societies: A win-win partnership. The Coachella Valley Journalism Foundation combined supporting local journalism and local historical groups into one membership, resulting in an increase of members who donate $500 or more. Julie Makinen writes how news outlets can replicate the partnership mode.
  • Create a holiday to celebrate the community. Local podcast and newsletter City Cast Portland partners with the city to throw an annual party celebrating civic pride — and establish itself as an essential community hub, write Andi McDaniel and Giulia Fiaoni.

 

To learn more about supporting future API Local News Summits of news leaders, or if you’re curious about  API’s work on Revenue & Resilience more broadly, please contact us.

The post 4 ways local news can build local identity — and bring in new revenue appeared first on American Press Institute.

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