Plan your live journalism events with this workbook from the American Press Institute

Live events are an attractive platform for many local news organizations. Events build brand awareness and trust, bring the community together and, of course, can be a source of revenue. But they require a significant amount of planning and logistics. Enter: the live journalism events workbook.

This workbook brings together the knowledge of more than 20 experts and local news organizations who excel in the live events space. It was developed for the American Press Institute’s Live Events Sprint for alumni organizations of the Table Stakes Local News Transformation Program, and it has been modified to be a self-guided tool to help you plan your next live journalism event.

Journalism is a team sport — journalism events especially so; we encourage you to establish a core team committed to making your live journalism event idea a reality before diving into the workbook. You’ll start by organizing your ideas through an event proposal. Then you’ll further refine the details and build out a plan through 15-minute flaring exercises to complete as a team and more in-depth assignments that could take an hour or more each.

API’s Live Events Sprint cohort completed this workbook over 5 weeks, and then teams spent an additional month or two planning and promoting their events. You may want to spend more time, or less, depending on your familiarity with live events.

Check out these ideas and tips for your next live journalism event:

• 6 live journalism event ideas you can replicate in your community
• How a ‘run of show’ document can make your journalism event a success
• How to pick the right venue for your journalism event
• Leveraging partnerships and sponsorships for journalism events