Letrell Crittenden

After a six-month pilot of an ecosystem-wide local news advisory committee, we’re sharing a multi-part perspective series on this effort: an outgrowth of our deep, three-year commitment to the Pittsburgh media ecosystem, which included two learning cohorts, a dozen community listening sessions and now this committee. It’s our hope at the American Press Institute that other local news organizations will take up the charge to build trust by engaging their communities.

The first part of the Inclusion Index project began in Spring 2022. The American Press Institute, alongside the Pittsburgh Black Media Federation, an award-winning chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists, did an in-depth dive into how PublicSource was handling issues related to DEI and engagement. The process, which included interviews with staff and community members and a content assessment, led to an internal report ofPublicSource’s strengths and weaknesses.

Want to know an inconvenient truth about the journalism industry in America? Ideas to address the challenges facing journalism have been available for years. The problem is, these solutions often don’t reach the people who could benefit the most. Why? Because these solutions are put forward by academic scholars. But too often, their ideas are never seen by journalists fighting everyday battles inside of newsrooms.