API at 80

Welcome to our October Special Edition Series, where we’re marking the American Press Institute’s 80th anniversary by sharing actions you can take each week to test out strategies developed through API’s work as a solutions lab for local media.

Tomorrow, the American Press Institute will welcome more than 70 news leaders and non-news experts to our third Local News Summit of the year to surface solutions on news avoidance and digital wellness. Last week, we hosted a group of 50 for our AI in Leadership Retreat.

While the challenges have changed dramatically, the spirit of these gatherings goes back 80 years to API’s beginning. The founders of API recognized the value of training and supporting mid-career editors, something not done in the industry before 1946.

In the eight decades since that first seminar with 26 newspaper editors, API has evolved as the industry and the needs of news leaders have changed. But our emphasis on connection and peer learning has always been at the center of what we do.

Research supports the value of these connections. Relationships beyond your immediate team and organization expose you to new ideas and different perspectives that can help you tackle challenges and surface better solutions. These connections also lead to more innovation and better career outcomes.

This month, we’ll share actions you can take each week to test out strategies developed through API’s work as a solutions lab for local media. In the coming weeks, we’ll dig into three areas that are important to the future of local journalism: civic trust, people and culture and organizational resilience. Today, we’ll focus on that valuable peer network API’s programming has fostered since its beginning.

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