America Amplified champions community engagement journalism

American journalism is facing several critical challenges. In the last 20 years, more than 1,500 communities in the nation have lost local coverage, as newsrooms have closed and merged. From vaccine doubt to the rise of conspiracy theories, many Americans receive and share misinformation regularly. Additionally, from 2005 to 2020, trust in the media fell from 50 to 40 percent. 

As news leaders have seen here at WFYI and across the country, turning to the community in this challenging time offers public media the unique opportunity to build trust, enhance local coverage and dispel misinformation. That approach, called community engagement journalism within the field, focuses on leveraging ideas, questions and insights from everyday people to create compelling, high-impact and accurate news coverage. The America Amplified initiative aims to support that approach across the country, and WFYI recently became the effort’s new host station.

This fall, 20 stations joined America Amplified to explore new ways of engaging with their local audiences to strengthen reporting. Most of the stations selected have small to medium-sized newsrooms, ranging from newsroom staffs of only two people to ones with up to 19 employees. They span the country from New England to Appalachia, from Alaska to Texas, and from New Orleans to Oklahoma City. Some stations actively use community engagement practices while others are just beginning. 

Those stations receive support and project guidance from four WFYI staff members:

• Alisa Barba, Managing Director
• Paola Marizan, Project Manager
• Chelsea Naughton, Digital Content Editor
• Matt Rasnic, Training Supervisor

America Amplified began in 2019 at KCUR in Kansas City as an effort to expand community engagement journalism during the 2020 election. This new phase of the project, proudly hosted by WFYI, is funded through a $983,451 grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Learn more about America Amplified and community engagement journalism at americaamplified.org.