12 ideas for fostering belonging and collaboration in local news organizations

This is a series on Better News to a) showcase innovative/experimental ideas that emerge from the Knight-Lenfest Newsroom Initiative and b) share replicable tactics that benefit the news industry as a whole. 

This piece features tips from Dr. Kortni Alston Lemon, Marci Alboher, Dr. Randal Pinkett, Dr. Mary Gentile, LaTonya Wilkins and B. McKensie Mack, who participated in the API Local News Summit for Table Stakes Alumni, focused on fostering belonging and collaboration.

More from this summit:

• 5 frameworks to help improve collaboration in news organizations
• 8 ideas for managing generational tensions in your news organization
• How to build resilience for yourself and your news organization

How can we better support workplaces where people feel heard and supported, with structures in place for sharing ideas and working together? To surface ideas and solutions, the American Press Institute gathered more than 60 news leaders and experts to tackle those goals of fostering belonging and collaboration.

At the API Local News Summit for Table Sakes Alumni, held in Minneapolis in July 2024, six experts led small-group discussions to share ideas from outside journalism spaces:

• Dr. Kortni Alston Lemon of Gardner-Webb University, who spoke about positive psychology
• Marci Alboher of CoGenerate, who spoke about generational tensions
• Dr. Randal Pinkett of BCT Partners, who spoke about data-driven DEI
• Dr. Mary Gentile of Giving Voice to Value, who spoke about that framework
• LaTonya Wilkins of Change Coaches, who spoke about psychological safety
• B. McKensie Mack of MMG Earth, who spoke about change management through a social justice lens

Here are 12 ideas from those discussions that you can apply in your own news organizations.

Dr. Kortni Alston Lemon leads a talk on how positive psychology can help you lead and create cultures of happiness. (Photo by Darin Kamnetz)

Positive psychology and cultures of happiness

Leave work loudly: As a newsroom leader, make the end of your workday visible and explicit. Announce you’re heading home, update your status to “away” and communicate expectations around off-hours communication. Leaders who “leave loudly” demonstrate to their teams that it’s not just okay, but important, to disconnect from work — leading to better well-being and resilience in the long term. 

Prioritize your team’s mental health: News leaders can create a happier, healthier, more productive workplace culture by consistently addressing staff mental health. That might include scheduling dedicated check-ins with direct reports, distributing “resiliency toolkits” that provide strategies for managing stress, granting explicit “mental health days” and instituting mental health training for managers. For more ideas and resources on journalist mental health, check out API’s resource guide and Dr. Kortni Alston Lemon’s podcast, Kourting Happiness, and her resource guide on positive newsroom leadership.

Marci Alboher leads a talk on navigating generational tensions and creating welcoming workplaces. (Photo by Darin Kamnetz)

Navigating generational tensions

Share the power: Create opportunities for employees of different generations to lead together, whether that’s yielding time to younger staff at big meetings, appointing cross-generational management teams for newsroom projects or assembling task forces, editorial boards and management teams with an eye toward age diversity. “Cogeneration” co-leadership fosters knowledge sharing, bridges generational gaps and leverages all employees’ lived experiences — helping news organizations build inclusive workplace cultures and reach a wide range of audiences.

Create opportunities for knowledge exchange: Monthly brown-bag lunches and other informal training sessions are great opportunities for staff members of all ages to share their unique skills and experiences, whether that’s shooting a viral TikTok or building source relationships. “Older and younger journalists can learn a lot from each other,” Marci Alboher wrote in a July 2024 piece for Better News, which shares eight ideas for managing generational tensions in your news organization. 

Dr. Randal Pinkett (second from left) leads a talk on using data to measure, analyze and improve diversity, equity and inclusion, on which he also wrote a book, “Data-Driven DEI.” (Photo by Darin Kamnetz)

Use data to measure, analyze and improve DEI

Remember that data is a human-driven process: When developing a DEI strategy, Dr. Randal Pinkett said that “people matter the most” because they are the ones who create change in organizations. News organizations should prioritize and define the knowledge or skills that they want their people managers to embody. Examples of these competencies include experience resolving conflict through differences and practicing inclusive leadership. It’s also important for an organization to hold itself accountable to these inclusion goals. For more tools and resources, check out Dr. Pinkett’s “Data-Driven DEI” framework.

Explore how technology can support your data goals: News organizations collect so much data for audience development and business records, but there aren’t a lot of tools that can help build context for an informed DEI strategy. AI can lower the bar for organizations across industries by allowing them to query and search data that’s already been collected. If there are concerns about the use of AI technology,  a “human-in-the-loop” can investigate the decision trees and algorithmic approaches training the system. The American Press Institute’s Source Matters tool, for example, uses advanced natural language processing (NLP) algorithms to detect sources in news stories to help track the diversity of sources quoted in your local coverage. Source Matters also allows users complete control to add, change or remove any source from the tool.

Dr. Mary Gentile (right) shares takeaways after her talk on effectively and respectfully addressing values conflicts in the workplace, which was based on her framework and book, “Giving Voice to Values.” (Photo by Darin Kamnetz)

‘Values-driven leadership’ development

Focus on common principles: When dealing with value conflicts in the workplace — and even when skies are clear — work on identifying and acting on high-level values that many people share. Ideas like honesty, respect, responsibility, fairness and compassion tend to resonate widely, according to this “Giving Voice to Values” to-do list from the University of Virginia.

Talk about your values: Many news organizations publish mission statements or other passive declarations. But values-driven leadership invites news leaders to discuss their personal and organizational values by also sharing personal stories, conducting scenario-based skills training and engaging staff in ethical debates and conversations. Dr. Mary Gentile shares more tips and resources in a free, asynchronous Coursera class based on her “Giving Voice to Values” curriculum. The curriculum focuses on ethical implementation and asks the question: “What if I were going to act on my values? What would I say and do? How could I be most effective?”

LaTonya Wilkins (center) leads a talk on psychological safety. (Photo by Darin Kamnetz)

Create psychological safety with your team

Embrace vulnerability: For your team to feel safe speaking up at work, they have to see you share personal challenges, mistakes and uncertainties. That demonstrates that it’s okay to be imperfect — and that their ideas and challenges won’t be judged or derided. Modeling vulnerability encourages everyone to be more open and fosters an environment where people feel comfortable taking risks and sharing ideas.

Sit with discomfort: Not all conflicts or challenges can be resolved right away. Leaders who can acknowledge and tolerate those uncomfortable situations — without immediately trying to fix them — empower their teams to engage in challenging conversations, without the pressure of also finding instant resolutions. LaTonya Wilkins shares more tips on the guide “How to Have Psychologically Safe Conversations with People Who Are Different From You.”

B. McKensie Mack (second from left) leads their group through a discussion on approaching change management with a social justice lens. (Photo by Darin Kamnetz)

Change management through a social justice lens

Avoid being an emotional martyr: While it’s important to listen to others and their concerns, it’s equally important to remember that we’re not responsible for how other people feel. Define boundaries for how you’d like to show up to the space, then decide whether those boundaries are “firm” or “flexible,” B. McKensie Mack advises. If there’s conflict, share research and lean toward action by outlining “here’s what you can do and here’s what we can do.” Developing a set of community agreements with colleagues can help build a shared understanding and remind the group of expectations over time. 

Give the group options to get involved: As learners, adults seek relevance through knowledge, skills and attitudes. To manage change, it’s crucial to make the issue or solution immediately clear and relevant to folks. One of the principles of andragogy, or adult learning theory, emphasizes that adults see themselves as self-directed and able to make their own decisions. Even if a policy is mandatory, give people the space to ask questions, show up and be future change leaders who contribute to ways forward.