TNC: Measuring Impact at UNC's Local Journalism Researchers Workshop

The local journalism industry is placing a greater emphasis on understanding how to effectively track, measure, and communicate impact, a practice I've observed growing in each non-profit news organization I've worked with. This year's Local News Researchers Workshop at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill focused on impact and measurement, energizing practitioners, academic researchers, and newsrooms alike.

Questions around impact measurement have surfaced in every journalism role I've held—whether editorial, business, or tech-facing—making this workshop particularly relevant. Alongside Nora Hertel of Project Optimist, I had the opportunity to present on the Newsroom Impact Measurement panel, sharing Tiny News Collective's early learnings from piloting our data and metrics program (now called Tiny Vitals Metrics Lab).

Our presentation centered on a dashboard we built in partnership with Datasketch that consolidates a publisher's key growth and impact metrics. This tool specifically addresses the unique needs of small, independent newsrooms in making practical use of their data and metrics. We'll be publishing more detailed findings from this pilot program soon.

The panel was especially meaningful to be a part of because I presented alongside Project Optimist, a newsroom I've watched grow over the past few years. Nora provided a crucial reality check of what it actually takes to track, interpret, and utilize data for decision-making in a small newsroom environment.

One of the workshop's most valuable aspects was exposure to programmatic evaluation and frameworks from broader research and community engagement spaces. Thanks to insights from Jennifer Berktold, Ph.D., Eric Chen, and Jhmira Latrice Alexander, MPA, I'm exploring how journalism can adopt these more established methodologies for measuring newsroom impact.

As I reflect on the conversations and connections from this week, several key questions emerge for journalism's next phase of impact articulation:

What types of audience engagement truly constitute impact? How do we identify and measure both direct and indirect changes attributed to our reporting? And critically, how do these metrics vary based on a newsroom's specific mission, geographic location, and target audiences?

I feel strong after returning from the Local News Researchers Workshop at… | Madison Karas

I feel strong after returning from the Local News Researchers Workshop at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill this week, which focused on impact and measurement. I'm invigorated seeing the journalism industry (academic researchers, practitioners, and newsrooms) dig their teeth more into defining how to track, measure, and communicate about impact, as questions around this have come up in every role I've been in (editorial, business, or tech-facing) in journalism. Nora Hertel and I presented on the Newsroom Impact Measurement panel about Tiny News Collective's early learnings from piloting our data and metrics program. We shared about how we built a dashboard with Datasketch that brings together a publisher's key growth and impact metrics and needs of small, independent newsrooms in making use of their data and metrics (more to be published on that soon). It was a meaningful opportunity to share alongside Project Optimist, a newsroom that I've grown alongside these last few years, in which Nora offered a reality check on what it *actually* takes to track, interpret, and utilize data for decision-making in a small newsroom setting. I was inspired learning about programmatic evaluation and frameworks used in broader research and community engagement spaces (thank you, Jennifer Berktold, Ph.D., Eric Chen and Jhmira Latrice Alexander, MPA!), and how we can adopt these for more utilizable methods in measuring newsroom impact. I also got to spend IRL time with my TNC team, Andrea Faye Hart and Erica Perel! I'm left thinking about the next few years of journalism's work-to-do in articulating newsroom impact and what approaches we use to track it — what types of engagement with our audiences are impact? What direct and indirect changes attributed to our work are impact? And how do those vary by newsroom mission, location and audiences? ...To be continued at Tiny News Collective and beyond!

LinkedInMadison Karas