UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The News Lab at Penn State has earned a grant to complete two election-related projects as part of a nationwide effort supported by the American Press Institute (API) and the Knight Election Hub.

This grant will support the News Lab’s ongoing engagement reporting in districts that historically determine Pennsylvania's political direction, as well as rural counties in central Pennsylvania. Engagement reporting combines the power of community engagement with traditional news reporting to produce journalism that aims to more authentically serve communities and reflect their interests and needs.

The News Lab’s work includes in-person and virtual roundtable conversations in Erie and Northampton counties that allow residents to identify and discuss their priorities and experiences locally. They are also focused on using technology, like text messaging and voicemails, to allow residents across central Pennsylvania to similarly share their experiences and hyper-local concerns. 

With the support of the API Election Engagement Experiment Fund, the News Lab will have access to technology rarely used outside of newsrooms like The New York Times and the Texas Tribune. Their experience and findings will serve as a blueprint from which other rural newsrooms can gain insight. The News Lab’s work on this began in October and will continue through February 2025.

The News Lab, led by Maggie Messitt, the Norman Eberly Professor of Practice in the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications, facilitates partnerships between professional news organizations and student journalists — regularly collaborating on long-form and special projects.

“This API grant is an exciting investment in the News Lab’s Local Reporting Cohort but, more importantly, it’s an investment in rural communities across Pennsylvania. While we see this as an extension of election coverage, we will be doing what we always do – sticking around to listen to residents long after mainstream and urban-based journalists head home,” Messitt said.

“What we learn will influence our reporting choices and will result in important lessons around the use of these engagement tools in rural counties, especially those hardest hit by a shrinking community media landscape.”

The American Press Institute awarded a total of 31 grants to local and community-based media across the country as part of its expanded work with the Knight Election Hub, an initiative of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

The recipients of awards from the Election Engagement Experiment Fund represent a range of nonprofit and for-profit media across the United States, serving urban and rural communities in eight swing states and more than 10 others. With the latest awards, API has distributed funding to 58 news organizations to augment their work around 2024 elections.

“We believe in fostering a culture of experimentation among our news partners, one that allows them to test and develop ideas that better serve their communities,” said Michael D. Bolden, API’s chief executive officer and executive director. “Sharing the results of this work — the lessons learned and the successes and failures — helps the entire industry build a better future for media.”

The new grants specifically help augment community engagement efforts with at least one of two strategies for community engagement: 1) community listening and conversations, and 2) the strategic use of print.

“The Knight Election Hub matches services and products with the newsrooms that need them to cover the election this year, yet we know there are ideas and practices that would be useful to newsrooms that aren’t available from the marketplace,” said Scott Klein, entrepreneur in residence at Newspack and leader of the Knight Election Hub. “That’s what is exciting with these projects. We’re able to make available the innovative, community-first engagement work API has been championing in the same way, with immediate utility for dozens of newsrooms.”

API will share insights from the projects along with additional resources and programming later this year and into 2025.

The Knight Election Hub, made possible by an investment from Knight Foundation, provides resources and services to U.S. newsrooms covering the 2024 elections. These resources, which include training, data, software and even polling, help publishers serve their audiences by giving them the information they need to make informed voting decisions, have confidence in the election process and results, and understand the role newsrooms play in providing reliable civic information.