For an organization that produced an innovative idea or practice that had a positive financial impact on the newsroom and will help the newsroom serve its community or audience into the future.

2026 Award Winner

Conecta Arizona

Listening as Innovation: Building Joy, Safety and a Sustainable Information Infrastructure on the Border by Staff

Conecta Arizona knows its audience. It connects to them through different channels: mobile apps, its website and live events.

When a Nicaraguan father livestreamed on TikTok an ICE raid of his home last year, the post went viral. Afterward, Conecta Arizona “was the only newsroom the families truly let inside,” explains the news outlet’s nomination letter for the INNovator Award. “Not because we had the biggest cameras, but because they already knew our voices from La Hora del Cafecito, from 5 a.m. messages after other knocks at other doors, from the slow work of answering every single WhatsApp audio when no one else did.”

“To them, we weren’t ‘the media.’ We were the people who always pick up.”

Conecta Arizona provides its audience with practical advice, in plain language, through vertical videos and an unconventional use of WhatsApp: “We use WhatsApp not as a bulletin board, but as our main newsroom.” 

They also provided time for a live chat with a lawyer to answer people’s unfiltered questions.” 

“Every day, from dawn to late night, 16,000 people use voice notes and messages to tell us what’s happening: raids, checkpoints, elections, health scares, rental scams, water cuts, school problems, grief,” the nomination letter states.

A judge praised the effort as “a bold and inspiring model.” Another judge said the news outlet’s coverage reflects that “they saw a community need and met it.”

Finalists

• The Oglethorpe Echo, How The Oglethorpe Echo is Making Newsroom Processes Better, Faster with AI, Staff
• Nashville Banner, Nashville Banner ZIP Code Project, Staff