With many local newsrooms trying to do more with less these days, looking outside your newsroom to partner with other local news publications can have the effect of having a larger, more diverse staff that can cover more topics, more areas of your region, and be more representative of your community.

In this guide, we will walk you through key questions to ask when considering a partnership, as well as ideas and tips for success and best practices for cross-newsroom collaboration.

We will also profile a successful partnership between the newsrooms at The Dallas Morning News and Texas Metro News, outlining how they did it, from the formal arrangement to working together on stories, events and more.

Download Now

How you can use the Guide:

This Guide provides practical tips and advice to help ensure a successful news publishing partnership, from identifying potential partners, to getting to know your partner, to leveraging your partnership outside the newsroom and over the long-term.

Throughout the Guide, there are helpful worksheets for you to fill in as you go, prompting you to think about key questions you should ask yourself as you are exploring and navigating a new partnership. Tips and ideas are sprinkled throughout the Guide to help build and strengthen the partnership and resulting coverage.

The case study with The Dallas Morning News and Texas Metro News provides a model for a successful partnership that is respectful, strategic and utilizes effective communications. Their journey provides a useful road map for other newsrooms who are looking to expand their coverage, as well as ensure their reporting is more inclusive and representative of their community. Insightful commentary from both publishers offers the keys to their success.

What you’ll find in the Guide:

• Key questions to ask yourself as you are thinking about a partner (e.g., What gaps in your coverage could a partner help fill?)
• Tips and ideas to try as you explore a potential partnership and when working with a partner
• Ways to deepen your understanding of and relationship with your partner across the organization
• Interactive worksheets to organize your thoughts and priorities; brainstorm potential partners; think about collaboration opportunities outside of the newsroom; consider potential challenges and responses; etc.
• Handling breaking news coverage
• Communicating publicly about your partnership
• What has made The Dallas Morning News and Texas Metro News partnership successful and how to apply the learnings
• Key takeaways to help ensure your partnership is a success

Download Guide

Sneak Peek:

Click on the thumbnails below to view select pages of the Guide. (Click the Back button in your browser to return to this page.)

Additional Resources:

News Media Alliance: 

• How Two Texas News Outlets are Taking Collaboration to the Next Level 

Center for Cooperative Media:

• Research and Reports about Collaborative Journalism
• A Collection of Guides, tip Sheets, and Best Practices for Collaboration
  • Building News Partnerships for Journalism Collaborations
  • Building Equity in Journalism Collaborations
  • Collaborative Journalism Workbook

Back to top

The post Tips for Successful News Publishing Partnerships appeared first on News/Media Alliance.

What’s your mission at the American Press Institute?

API’s mission is to help newsrooms transform for an audience-centered future. We focus on four core areas: 1) helping publishers better understand their audiences—how they’re getting their information, what are their concerns and how to address them through our analytics platform, Metrics for News; 2) building reader revenue, which can only be accomplished by understanding your audience; 3) improving and innovating accountability journalism and 4) succeeding at organizational change. My work at API is to support those four program areas, including through organizing research, events and partnerships.

What brought you to the American Press Institute, and the news media industry in general?

I grew up in South Dakota, reading the paper. I was really interested in what was happening in the world and society, so I considered studying something government-related or journalism. I ended up majoring in Anthropology, which gave me an interest in epistemology, or how people know what they now, and meanwhile I was active at student media. I worked at the Online News Association (ONA) before coming to API in 2013, when it was going through its major reinvention. I am grateful to be in a place supporting media; one of the biggest sources where people learn about the world.

What have you been working on to help the news media industry?

My work is more in the research, events and partnerships that support API’s four programs. On the research side, I help with our research collaboration with AP-NORC at the University of Chicago, called The Media Insight Project, where we are searching for different insights into the American public and their attitudes and behaviors with news. I also organize events to bring people who are working on a specific issue together to discuss their challenges.

I have also been working for the last couple of years on a project on how to start more journalism from a place of listening. A couple of years ago, we organized examples of this sort of work and later we brought people together to discuss how they established and built ties in their community through this approach. We gathered all their lessons into a report to help newsrooms better connect with their audiences. Building on that, we also recently started a year-long Community Listening Fellowship, where we opened an application process for journalists and selected ten fellows to receive API’s help pursuing this project.

The partnership part of my job is basically helping API act as a good team player and collaborator. There are a lot of nonprofits and organizations that want to support journalism, and API can support and work in concert with them and help connect dots between news organizations and these groups that can help them. Formal collaborations can help support a strong journalism ecosystem, but I believe that informal collaborations are also necessary – we are all on the same team. We all want journalism to be better, and we don’t have to do it alone.

What do you consider to be the biggest challenge that the news media industry is facing now?

I think that a lot of people feel divorced from the news and those who produce and report it. This has affected a lot of different things: the journalism that gets produced and who its serves, the ramifications of the news business model, among others. One concern is that, inevitably, there’s going to be a shift to reader revenue being more important, and if our audiences keep feeling disconnected from our work, who will support it financially?

What is the most promising opportunity for a publisher right now?

I hate to sound like a broken record, but I think that in-person work is among the most promising and important channels for a publisher now. It is a way of battling against the audience’s information overload online, and the disconnect they’ve been feeling from the news. It’s a scarce good and can establish or re-establish community ties.

What are you most excited about working on with the API for the rest of the year?

I’m excited about our work on reimagining opinion journalism. I think opinion sections could be a prime spot to strengthen ties with the community we want to serve, and really to further serve their needs. In today’s climate, there’s an opportunity to promote real online and in-person discussions, and to create a space where dialogue can open people’s minds to different views and perspectives. News organizations can take a leadership role in this regard, supporting their communities and standing out from the noise in the process.

The post 6 Answers with Kevin Loker, Director of Program Operations and Partnerships at the American Press Institute appeared first on News/Media Alliance.

Media Contact:

Lindsey Loving
Manager, Communications
lindsey@newsmediaalliance.org
571.366.1009

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

News Media Alliance to Partner on Mega-Conference 2018

WILL PARTICIPATE IN LARGEST NEWS MEDIA CONFERENCE OF 2018 WITH INLAND PRESS ASSOCIATION, LOCAL MEDIA ASSOCIATION AND SOUTHERN NEWSPAPER PUBLISHERS ASSOCIATION

June 20, 2017

Arlington, Va. – The News Media Alliance today announced it will join with Inland Press Association, Local Media Association and the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association as a partner of Mega-Conference 2018, to be held February 26-28, 2018 in San Diego, CA.

Mega-Conference attracts 700-900 attendees annually and features a large trade show. Attendees of Mega-Conference include representatives from both print and digital local news media companies, namely owners, publishers, and digital and revenue executives.

“We are delighted to join together with these three exceptional organizations to offer the biggest, most innovative conference for the news publishing industry,” stated News Media Alliance President & CEO David Chavern.

“The membership of the Inland Press Association is committed to smart collaborations with other newspaper industry partners,” said Tom Slaughter, Executive Director, Inland Press Association. “In that spirit, we welcome the News Media Alliance as a co-sponsor of the Key Executives Mega-Conference and look forward to making the 2018 conference in San Diego a success for the members of our organizations.”

The addition of the News Media Alliance to the conference’s main partners raises the total membership across the four organizations to over 5,000.

“We are thrilled to welcome the News Media Alliance as co-sponsor of the Mega Conference,” said Nancy Lane, President, Local Media Association, “This is a great move for the industry that will allow us to leverage the power of the four associations to produce the best program and maximize networking opportunities for the R&D community. Mega 2018 in San Diego is going to be powerful!”

“SNPA welcomes the Alliance as an industry sponsor of the Mega-Conference,” stated Edward VanHorn, Executive Director of the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association. “This consolidation of events will benefit the industry and its R&D partners, and produce a more diversified program and even better networking opportunities.”

Registration for Mega-Conference will open in early September.

For more information about Mega-Conference, visit http://www.mega-conference.com/

###

ABOUT NEWS MEDIA ALLIANCE:

The News Media Alliance is a nonprofit organization representing nearly 2,000 news organizations and their multiplatform businesses in the United States and Canada. Alliance members include print, digital and mobile publishers of original news content. Headquartered near Washington, D.C., in Arlington, Va., the association focuses on ensuring the future of news media through communication, research, advocacy and innovation. Information about the News Media Alliance (formerly NAA) can be found at www.newsmediaalliance.org.

The post News Media Alliance to Partner on Mega-Conference 2018 appeared first on News/Media Alliance.