In-person gatherings can bolster brands, reach new audiences, deepen relationships with existing audiences, provide feedback from the community, bring stories into the community, and drive revenue, among other purposes.
Here’s an idea to steal and adapt: Identify and serve an audience segment that has left your print edition, but is still invested in your community and active in city life. Help them find value in a digital subscription.
News events can provide an opportunity for news organizations to both engage audiences more deeply and add a potential revenue stream to their business portfolio, but they must think of these events as part of their journalism and must think strategically about how it fits into the portfolio.
As news organizations begin to engage more deeply in live events with underwriting or sponsorship, there are a range of approaches for how to balance content/programming with the potential influence from sponsors.
In an era where news organizations are rethinking business models and sustainable approaches to serving their communities, having an in-depth relationship with your community that includes and is built around face-to-face engagement is more crucial than ever.
Making live events a potential revenue stream is a long-term strategy that requires careful and strategic planning and that should connect into the strengths of a news organization and the resonance it has in the lives of its audiences.
A look at a variety of ways that narrative journalism styles are being transformed into live events from news organizations.
Here’s an idea to steal and adapt: Use your newsroom talent and expertise to put on live events that show off your depth as an organization and offer new ways for audiences to engage with your work.
News organizations are finding ways to pivot their consumer revenue strategies in response to COVID-19, from taking events online to making timely appeals and building connections among audiences and experts. These adaptations of audience engagement and memberful modes of working are ready for application to our new normal.
Here’s an idea to steal and adapt: WFAE kicked off a community podcast competition that sparked hundreds of new podcast ideas, revealed issues important to the community and empowered residents of all ethnicities and backgrounds to share their stories.
Here’s an idea to steal and adapt: When planning arts coverage, ignore the calendar and ditch stories pegged to upcoming performances, art openings, festivals and events. Instead, focus on news, people and what the arts say about your city.
This article outlines five tips for getting reporting to the audiences who need it most.
Here’s an idea to steal and adapt: Identify a statewide issue that requires reporting from various locations across the state. Enlist partners with a range of applicable skills who represent different localities and mediums, including print, digital, TV and radio.
An arty re-casting of podcast content helped NYLA reach beyond their usual listeners and their usual digital channels. Collaboration with civic organizations provided a footprint and access to their audiences. The exhibit drew more than 13,000 visitors and introduced the news organization beyond Lithuania’s capital.
Kristin Walters of Illinois Newsroom breaks down essential logistics to consider when planning in-person events.
Here’s an idea to steal and adapt: The Durango Herald partnered with several organizations to use a solutions journalism approach to covering youth suicide, a sensitive subject that the publication had received criticism for in past coverage. The approach won over the publication’s critics and improved the community conversation around the difficult topic. The paper funded its coverage through a grant from the Solutions Journalism Network.
Here’s an idea to steal and adapt: The Minneapolis Star Tribune looks for gaps in a very crowded events market, then ventures in — cautiously.
Here’s an idea to steal and adapt: The Durango Herald created a twice-monthly speaker series to connect with new audiences, existing readers and subscribers. The events focus on a wide variety of topics, and offer a new way to engage with diverse communities.
How Spaceship Media partnered with AL.com to create a virtual convening of female voters in Alabama and California to talk politics in the midst of a combative, polarized national political climate.
This case study describes how one news collaboration built live events atop a deep investigation/reporting project built on community participation.
This case study demonstrates a more advanced way newsrooms might provide in-person public gatherings for citizens to get involved in the journalism process.
In the earlier days of Facebook Live, news organizations of various sizes were taking significantly different approaches to experimenting with how to use livestreaming in their newsrooms.
Various nonprofit news organizations are experimenting with how to engage their audiences in new ways, including through the use of live events.
New York Public Radio invested in a dedicated performance space, which both brings its radio programs into a live event setting and hosts a range of live events built around its programming slate.
Eight practical considerations for livestreaming.
The Texas Tribune’s success in live events was designed around a centerpiece annual paid festival and a diversified free events strategy.
What are the most basic questions you should ask yourself as you begin thinking about livestreaming an event?
The Chattanooga Free Times Press’ strategy at the time is detailed — built around 12 events a year that contributed 11 percent of the retail revenue of the news organization.
The Arizona Republic built a live storytelling event into a series of 16 events a year that not only draw enough revenue to pay for themselves but also to contribute to the organization’s bottom line.