This year we launched 16 short-term experiments with newsrooms across the country

From personal ads to web scraping and revenue streams; here’s what we learned

When we begin projects for our Innovation in Focus series, we always start with a vital question: What is a challenge that your news organization has been meaning to tackle, but you haven’t had the time or resources to address yet? 

In 2025, this led to 16 different experiments lasting from a few weeks to two months each and for every one of these experiments we partnered with at least one newsroom. For our Mini Revenue Experiments, 25 news organizations participated together. Our partners serve communities everywhere from Oregon, Texas, Kansas and Pennsylvania to Canada and the United Kingdom.

Tools we’ve tried (and liked)

• Octoparse with Zapier — Partnering with The Haitian Times, we used Octoparse, a web-scraping tool with Zapier to automate the collection of information for a community guide. Here’s how we did it.
• Descript — We used this tool with Dallas Free Press to transform long public meeting videos into short clips that they could use on social media. Here’s what we learned, and how Dallas Free Press planned to incorporate this into their Documenter’s program.
• BillTrack50 — With legislation changing so quickly, we searched for a tool that would help The Appeal track updates for specific beats. We liked how BillTrack50 addressed this challenge and connected with Slack. See how it stacked up to other tools here.
• GlitterAI — We partnered with KASU to find more efficient ways to onboard new staff to the content calendar, and we appreciated how GlitterAI used transcriptions and screenshots to save time.

Community engagement ideas you can replicate

• Walking tours — Inspired by Cara Kuhlman’s walking tours at Future Tides, we partnered with Newsberg to conduct a walking tour this summer, including a cute zine, and the small news organization hopes to keep them up! Here are some of the templates and early lessons learned.
• Making community feedback fun and in-person — We worked alongside CivicLex as they planned to gather feedback from their community on future growth and changes to their newsletter and website. The results were fun, helpful and provided good examples for future engagement!
• Personal ads — We partnered with Pittsburgh City Paper as they reimagined bringing back personal ads, opening up creative opportunities for social media interactions and in-person events. Here’s what we learned.

Revenue strategies that made impact 

• Competition and collaboration — Partnering with KBIA and Kansas Public Radio, we ran a fundraising experiment that centered around a big college football rivalry. Find our templates and takeaways here.
• Thinking creatively about sponsorships — We interviewed Erica Schopmeyer who shared some practical strategies for building out sponsorships, and how to think outside the box when partnering with community organizations and businesses.
• Breaking down big revenue goals into small experiments — In our Mini Revenue Experiments, we identified and tested four ways that newsrooms can try something new related to fundraising in just one month.

Want to partner with us in 2026?

Email Innovation in Focus Editor Emily Lytle at lytle@rjionline.org.

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Cite this article

Lytle, Emily (2025, Dec. 17). This year we launched 16 short-term experiments with newsrooms across the country. Reynolds Journalism Institute. Retrieved from: https://rjionline.org/news/this-year-we-launched-16-short-term-experiments-with-newsrooms-across-the-country/