Reynolds Journalism Institute

11/14/2025

The future — and present — of journalism is collaborative, not competitive.

As revenue and readership for news organizations decline, newsrooms joining forces in fundraising and resource sharing helps increase content capacity and reach. RJI Fellow Monica Williams believes journalists working together, rather than against each other, may be the key for sustainability of public media.

Read more about collaboration in news and fundraising.

An increasing number of newsrooms are turning to collaboration to increase capacity and reach. November 13, 2025 RJI Fellowships Revenue strategies RJI Fellows Class of 2025–2026 RJI Fellows stories News Want financial backing for your news organization? Collaborate with others Monica Williams RJI...

11/13/2025

For newsrooms building user-friendly resource directories, utilizing online tools makes scraping websites and inputting information a more efficient process.

This was the goal of The Haitian Times as it creates a directory of Haitian organizations across the country to connect Haitian community members. Innovation in Focus student staffer Ishrat Madiha collaborated with The Haitian Times to find reliable tools that scrape websites, collect data and format it correctly to make this process easier.

Read more to see what tools work for The Haitian Times.

The Haitian Times is building a community guide to connect people with Haitian businesses, nonprofits, restaurants and more. November 13, 2025 Engagement Technology News Efficient ways to collect information for a community directory Ishrat Madiha Innovation in Focus Experimenting with tools that sc...

11/12/2025

2024-2025 RJI Fellow Aura Walmer will conduct a data sonification workshop Friday at Information+ 2025 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Sonification is "the practice of representing data in the form of sound and music." Learn more about her Data Sonification Toolkit at the link below.

Introducing the Data Sonification Toolkit: https://rjionline.org/news/introducing-the-data-sonification-toolkit/.

11/10/2025

"News has it bad," writes Don Marti, "but the alarming traffic and revenue numbers are symptoms of a larger trend: a shift to a lower-trust society as a result of some deliberate technical and policy decisions by Big Tech platforms. News as a business suffers, but things are bad all over, and news will have to be a key part of the fix."

November 10, 2025 Technology Revenue strategies Columns News The traffic and revenue crisis for news is a symptom of Big Tech’s economy-wide trust collapse Don Marti Don Marti columns The news business is a key part of the solution Don Marti is a strategist in web ecosystem and open source busines...

11/07/2025

At Outlier Media, Sarah Alvarez learned that making an impact for low-income Detroiters meant reporting on complex problems and not letting up. RJI Fellows Nicole Lewis and Lam Thuy Vo spoke with Alvarez about the relationship between journalism and impact, and how journalists can approach impact-driven coverage of seemingly intractable social and economic issues.

Photo: Leo Sage November 6, 2025 RJI Fellows stories RJI Fellows Class of 2025–2026 News Reporting Innovation RJI Fellowships The case for treating the news like a campaign Lam Vo RJI Fellows class of 2025–2026 Nicole Lewis At Outlier Media, Sarah Alvarez learned that making an impact for low-in...

11/05/2025

Congratulations to the 10 teams that have been selected as finalists for the 2026 RJI Student Innovation Competition. The finalists are:

— Team Alestle Influencer Amplification Project, Solomon Omondi, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.
— Team Block Club Chicago, Jake Cox and Riley Moulton, DePaul University.
— Team The Feed, Jazmin Goodwin, Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
— Team Geek Squad, Chloe Koster, Missouri School of Journalism.
— Team MIN, Mia Nuñez, USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.
— Team The News Checkers, David Cheung and Marina Roman, Columbia Journalism School.
— Team The Newsfluencer Academy – Taylor Nicole Price, Lizbeth Solorzano, Maricruz Villalobos and Rosaura Wardsworth, USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.
— Team News Dawgs, Shad McMillan and Makenna Reavis, University of Georgia.
— Team OpenMissouri, Wei He, Missouri School of Journalism.
— Team Spread, Lauren Harris and Jake Klingensmith, Columbia Journalism School.

The 2026 competition challenges students to create a project that builds a collaborative relationship between a local newsroom and trusted community influencers to build audience relationships.

In April, an independent panel of industry experts will pick the top three teams, including the first-place winner taking home the grand prize of $10,000. Second- and third-place teams will win $2,500 and $1,000, respectively. The judges are Anna Almendrala, Adriana Lacy and Liz Kelly Nelson.

Read on to learn more about the teams' projects and meet the judges: https://rjionline.org/news/finalists-named-in-2026-student-innovation-competition/.

11/05/2025

Three takeaways from Cara Kuhlman's second year of Future Tides ' free walking tours: minimalist marketing, a new tip jar and more participants. Kuhlman had three key goals for the 2025 tours. Did she reach them?

Future Tides founder and editor Cara Kuhlman leads a tour in Seattle. Photo: Jenna Ward | Future Tides November 5, 2025 RJI Fellows Class of 2025–2026 News Engagement RJI Fellowships RJI Fellows stories Takeaways from the second year of Future Tides’ free walking tours Cara Kuhlman RJI Fellows c...

11/03/2025

Taylor Bowman and inewsource used interactive mapping to highlight community assets and identify potential partners for events and trainings. Their tool of choice: Proxi.

The Innovation in Focus team drafted a map using Proxi in which community members can contribute points about places they find joy or find helpful resources. inewsource plans to incorporate this into future outreach. November 3, 2025 Citizen and community news News Technology Going beyond traditiona...

11/02/2025

November’s Community Conversation explores a new solutions journalism chatbot, a tool created through RJI’s partnership with El Colectivo 506.

Join project manager Sriya Reddy to learn more about the project, ask questions and sign up to be a beta tester.

Register here: https://umsystem.zoom.us/meeting/register/sBq14Ao0SvaC_bhw6daJ1Q #/registration

Read more about RJI’s partnership with El Colectivo 506: https://rjionline.org/news/were-building-a-new-bilingual-solutions-journalism-tool/

10/31/2025

Jared Schroeder, associate professor at the Missouri School of Journalism, writes about a new RJI online resource that tracks state-level legislation aimed at reversing the decline of local journalism.

"The resource identifies several types of legislative lifelines lawmakers have proposed, including tax credits for hiring journalists, fellowship programs, and small-business advertising credits. The efforts, particularly to those who are concerned about government interventions into journalistic independence, are surprisingly innovative."

Here are a few of examples.

RJI's new online resource tracks U.S. state-level legislation aimed at reversing decline of local journalism

10/31/2025

Editor & Publisher highlighted 2010-2011 RJI Fellow Joy Mayer's Trusting News and its new AI Trust Toolkit.

The concept for Trusting News originated during Mayer’s RJI fellowship due to the problem of mistrust in news organizations. Mayer, now the founder and director of Trusting News, tackles this concern with her team by creating resources for journalists to demonstrate credibility and build trust in their communities.

Learn more about RJI and Trusting News’ past partnership: https://rjionline.org/news/trusting-news-goes-independent-after-nearly-a-decade-of-support-from-rji/.

Trust in journalism is at a historic low — and fewer than a third of Americans say they trust artificial intelligence. That’s why nonprofit Trusting News has released a new AI Trust Kit, a hands-on guide for editors and reporters to set clear policies, disclose AI use in their work, and engage a...

10/29/2025

What can health care asset mapping teach journalists about building community relationships?

At Mobile Health Map, asset mapping, a digital visualization of local resources and support systems, is the key to identifying community issues and how the organization can fill those gaps.

RJI Innovation in Focus student staffer Taylor Bowman sat down with Kait Guild and Michael Lawler from Mobile Health Map to learn about how their work builds trust and relationships with communities and how journalists can use these tools to better understand their audiences’ challenges.

Read on for the full story.

Mobile Health Map’s mobile Health Clinic van sits on an empty street in Boston, Mass. Photo: Dave Cooper October 28, 2025 News Citizen and community news How community mapping can lead to impact in public health and community journalism Taylor Bowman Innovation in Focus A conversation with Kait Gu...