February 14, 2024

With support from the Google News Initiative, The Associated Press will offer nonprofit newsrooms that are members of the Institute for Nonprofit News access to U.S. election results as part of the organizations’ shared commitment to providing facts around the democratic process. 

AP will provide ready-to-publish graphics of both election results and AP VoteCast survey data to qualifying INN nonprofit news organizations throughout the primaries and general election. 

The graphics will be offered to hundreds of INN member newsrooms with the ability to serve their audiences with AP’s comprehensive and accurate tabulation of election results — from the race for the White House to every race for state legislature nationwide.

Notably, the news outlets, many of whom reach smaller and underserved communities, will receive access to state-specific data visualizations reporting the results and outcomes of races for state legislature and local office.

“It’s essential that we do all we can to combat elections-related misinformation for the good of the American democracy,” said David Scott, AP vice president and head of news strategy and operations. “By making sure more nonprofit newsrooms can access AP’s gold standard election results, we are helping ensure the facts about how Americans have voted reach as many people as possible.”

In addition to the data visualizations, participating INN newsrooms will have access to AP resources to aid in their understanding and use of the data, and to help build coverage plans and audience engagement efforts around election results.

“Local news organizations in the INN Network tend to be small and lean,” said Jonathan Kealing, INN chief network officer. “With a median of 4 staffers and $271,000 in revenue, these newsrooms do not have the capacity for this type of data analysis — but they do have loyal audiences who will greatly benefit from immediate access to AP elections data.” 

This benefit is limited to the 90% of INN members that have revenue of $5 million or less. All members of the INN Network are vetted for their commitment to journalism excellence, nonpartisanship, editorial independence and financial transparency. 

“The Google News Initiative is proud to support this initiative with The Associated Press and INN, so that they can bring authoritative and timely election results to nonprofit organizations, helping to keep communities informed and ensuring that people have access to accurate information,” said Sharen Phillips, director of global news partnerships at Google.

The AP-INN collaboration is funded by the GNI.