If your newsroom is looking for a way to rally community support and celebrate the essential role of local journalism, mark your calendars for April 9. Local News Day is a new grassroots movement designed to empower newsrooms to connect with their audiences and speak with one voice about the value they provide to their communities.
On a recent webinar for The Lab Link, the Lab for Journalism Funding’s alumni initiative, leaders from the Local News Day team shared the mission behind the movement and inspired newsrooms with ways to get involved. Newsrooms who sign up by March 26 will be included in a national newsroom directory and will have access to other resources to inspire engagement.
John Adams, founder and executive director of Montana Free Press, said he developed the idea for Local News Day through discussions with colleagues at Impactual, a social impact and creative consulting agency. He said the idea was modeled after successful national initiatives like Earth Day, Giving Tuesday and National Voter Registration Day.
“We thought we could really use a national day … that celebrates local news and the important role that local news plays in this country,” Adams said on the webinar. “It’s really about building an audience for local news … That great journalism that’s being done all over the country, it can’t have an impact unless people know about it.”
He said the goal is to help communities find local news sources and help local newsrooms grow their audiences to support their important work in the long run.
“Local newsrooms need bigger audience(s), and America needs local news,” he said. “That’s really at the heart of this.”
Here are a few ways your newsroom can get involved in the inaugural Local News Day event:
Sign up for the Local News Finder
On the Local News Day website, newsrooms can sign up to be included in a “Local News Finder” tool. This directory allows readers to enter their zip code to discover news providers in their area, sign up for newsletters and engage with local work.
“The Local News Finder is what we hope will become the most comprehensive directory for local news organizations anywhere on the internet,” Adams said.
Newsrooms who want to be included in this directory must sign up by March 26.
Plan Your Activation
Local News Day is intentionally non-prescriptive, encouraging newsrooms to innovate and experiment with new ways to engage their audiences. From profit-sharing events with local restaurants to newsroom tours, and merchandise giveaways to matching campaigns, newsrooms across the country are thinking of creative ways to celebrate local news.
For some newsrooms, mobilizing on Local News Day will take the form of call-to-action banners on their website, or social media posts encouraging community members to sign up for their newsletter.
The Local News Day team has toolkits with ready-to-use social media templates and assets for local newsrooms to use and adapt for online visibility, which newsrooms can access by signing up as a newsroom partner here.
“What we want to do is encourage people to kind of take a step back from sort of the day-to-day function of producing news, and really think about, “how could we do something to really meaningfully engage and build even greater support for our work in the place where we are?’” Adams said.
For more ideas, newsrooms can attend an information session on March 26 from the Local News Day team (register here). There is also a session from Local News Day sponsor BlueLena on March 25, focused on how to solicit donations (register here).
Share Your Success
A key goal of this movement is long-term sustainability through shared learning. After April 9, the Local News Day team will ask participants to complete a short survey regarding their audience growth and engagement. This data will be compiled into a report on best practices to help the movement grow even stronger in future years.
“We hope this becomes a really collaborative, inclusive effort, year over year,” said Bronwen Crowe, director at Impactual.
By joining more than 700 other newsrooms on April 9, you can help turn Local News Day into a powerful national tradition that ensures the future of local journalism.
If you missed our webinar and want to learn more about Local News Day, check out the recording here (Password: RsqEf^36).
Editor’s Note: AI was used to assist the author in writing parts of this article. Everything in the piece was edited and fact-checked by a human.
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