It’s against this backdrop that INN’s research team designed the Index survey this year around audience and distribution to better understand how nonprofit news organizations are defining, serving, engaging, and growing their audiences, both directly and across third-party publications and platforms.
Today we release the first chapter of our Audience & Distribution Index Report 2024, which examines how nonprofit news outlets are setting audience goals and distribution strategies based on their missions.
Our findings show the nonprofit news difference: that nonprofit news outlets’ missions and incentives are inherently different from their for-profit peers, and these incentives affect how these organizations are setting audience goals and distribution strategies.
Over the next several weeks, INN will release additional audience and distribution insights with each new chapter. In Chapter 2, we’ll dive into direct audience engagement and growth strategies. Chapter 3 will explore how third-party audiences and republication patterns are shaping the landscape. Chapter 4 takes a closer look at the evolving world of audience metrics and measurements. And finally, in Chapter 5, we’ll explore how marketing efforts are helping newsrooms grow their audiences.
Key Findings from Chapter 1: Audience Goals
The nonprofit model allows news outlets to primarily focus on public service and impact first — letting these organizations spend time and resources on the costly, time-intensive work of uncovering corruption, producing deep explanatory reporting, and connecting people to community services. Often, this means serving communities historically excluded or harmed by media organizations and covering topics that aren’t primed for audience growth or profit.
More than half of all nonprofit news outlets surveyed (51%) said they focus primarily on meeting the news and information needs of underserved communities and about a fifth of members prioritize serving communities of color. Among underserved communities, low income, rural and immigrant communities are the most frequently cited communities served, continuing the trend from last year. This commitment to serving specific groups shapes how these outlets approach audience growth and engagement.
Many outlets serving communities of color or other historically excluded groups are using less conventional engagement methods like text messaging, community events, WhatsApp groups, partnerships with ethnic news outlets to translate reporting, and print newsletters. INN reported on a few examples of this in its 2022 Q&A series, How nonprofit newsrooms serve communities of color. These approaches are often more expensive and require more staff time and expertise to implement.
The two biggest barriers for members in building out their audience work are limited staff time and financial resources, with nearly half of respondents citing staff time as their biggest challenge.
Many nonprofit outlets balance serving specific communities while reaching broader audiences. About 44% of outlets said they aim to serve both targeted and general audiences. The type of journalism they produce often dictates their audience strategy: outlets focused on explanatory journalism tend to prioritize specific audiences, while those doing investigative reporting or covering current events aim to reach broader groups.
The geographic scope and age of an outlet plays a role in shaping an outlet’s audience and distribution strategy, too. Local outlets typically focus on direct distribution through their own channels — like their websites or newsletters — often because local outlets operate in areas with few other high-quality news sources that might be potential republication partners. In contrast, larger national or global outlets tend to use third-party distribution partnerships to extend their reach (and impact) beyond their own platforms.
Despite their different approaches, most nonprofit news outlets share a common goal for 2024 and beyond: growing their audiences through direct platforms. When asked to rank their top audience goals, the two highest priorities were increasing website traffic and boosting email newsletter subscriptions. These goals were ranked higher than increasing social media engagement, paid reach, or third-party distribution.
Outlets tend to focus on audience goals where they see room for improvement. For example, a third of outlets surveyed said their top priority was increasing traffic to their websites, and this cohort reported lower web traffic compared to the full survey sample (reporting nearly half the mean Average Monthly Uniques). Outlets with web traffic growth as their primary goal tend to be state or regional in focus.
Measuring audience reach remains a challenge in goal-tracking efforts, especially when it comes to tracking engagement across platforms and partnerships. Tools like Google Analytics primarily capture on-platform behavior, leaving gaps in understanding reach through republishing partnerships. Efforts to track and measure both direct and third-party audiences will be explored in more detail in Chapter 4 of the report.
Are you part of a newsroom exploring audience issues? INN’s survey resources and expertise are available for news organizations trying to understand their relationship with their audience and the difference being a nonprofit may make. Learn more
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Thank you to our members and advisors: This work wouldn’t be possible without the 346 nonprofit news outlets who invested significant time and effort to complete the Index surveys, including an additional subset of members who took the time for an interview. Many thanks to our board of experts guiding this report (including Rick Edmonds, Nicolás Ríos, Eba Hamid-Rivera and Nicole Rocchio) and INN’s audience team (Sam Cholke and Jasmyne Ricard) for helping us identify key audience trends in the survey data.
