Commissioning a Local News Ecosystem Assessment: An Operational Toolkit
As local philanthropy becomes a more essential revenue source for local news, news ecosystem assessments are becoming an essential tool for funders, civic leaders, and newsroom leaders. These assessments reveal who is informing communities, where gaps persist, and how resources can be deployed more strategically.
If you’re like many people embarking on this work for the first time, you know you need this research, but you’re unsure exactly what it is, how it happens, and what the best practices are.
The Reynolds Journalism Institute (RJI) and the Local News Impact Consortium (LNIC) built “Commissioning a Local News Ecosystem Assessment: An Operational Toolkit” to answer those questions. This toolkit is authored by Ariel Zirulnick, an independent local news strategist who worked closely with researchers, newsrooms, and funders over the last year.
The guide is divided into two parts. The first installment takes you through the early steps of setting research goals and choosing a vendor. The second installment, which will be released mid-March, will focus on developing community surveys, and using research to guide strategy.
Dive into the guide here
- Step 1: Organize Your Research Committee
- Step 2: Take Stock of Existing Data and Research
- Step 3: Define Research Goals, Scope, and Constraints
- Step 4: Issue a Request for Proposals (RFP)
- Step 5: Select a Research Vendor
- Step 6: Develop a Strong Statement of Work (SOW)
It’s not a guide to research methods. It’s an operational playbook that fills in the steps no one ever writes down — drawn from real projects, real questions, and patterns we’ve seen across the field.