AMP Local: How Our Community Stack Powers Our Tech Stack

There is a wealth of information, talent, and resources that are under appreciated and underutilized in our neighborhoods. We set out to discover who makes up the communities we look to serve with AMP Local, and how we can move local networks from a passive to an ‘ active’ platform by tapping into community voices and amplifying their issues.

Ethan Zuckerman \| Internet Unleased \| Knight Media Forum

Last year, Brandon Braswell and I were one of the 4 teams selected to the American Journalism Project’s first local news incubator. We are grateful to have been selected out of 200+ applicants, especially at a time when the local news ecosystem is in a state of reinvention. We have an opportunity to create and distribute local news & information in ways that serve new audiences. We’ve taken this time to address the gaps we are seeing within the news ecosystem as a whole, while also doing market research and conducting community listening in Miami.

After working at the intersection of media, technology, and community for a decade together, this was an opportunity for us to learn, ideate, and innovate on how we could fill gaps in local news. From starting my journalism career at CBS-4 Miami 20 years ago, it feels like coming full circle getting the chance to build a nonprofit local network in Miami.

AMP Local Co-Founders, Adrienne C. McWilliams and Brandon Braswell

From past experience working in the Communications Department at Miami-Dade County and working with over 100 non-profits, we understand Miami’s diverse population faces some of the most critical issues of our time — affordable housing, climate change, economic mobility, and racial justice— and wanted to speak with people impacted by these issues.

We also went into this process knowing Miami is not a news desert. But if people can’t see themselves and the issues they care about represented, the connection to audiences is as barren as one. We set out to find how people in underserved neighborhoods felt about local news and what they wanted to see.

How to Identify & Activate Your Community Stack

AJP has done extensive research on what people want in their local news by conducting community listening sessions across the country. Fiona Morgan has led these efforts in multiple markets and provided a great roadmap of how to we could begin engaging residents meaningfully through enlisting ambassadors, conducting 1:1 and group sessions, as well as through asset mapping.

If you’re not familiar with asset mapping, it’s essentially identifying all the resources in a community. This can be everything from parks, schools and organizations to businesses, clubs, churches, and community hubs. It’s also the leaders of these neighborhoods, that may or may not have official titles. This may seem like a simple and obvious step, but it was mind blowing for us to discover the wealth of neighborhood resources and talent we gleaned in the process.

This process revealed these three essential things:

Asset Mapping → Points of Community Connection

Organizations, Social Impact Leaders, Hyperlocal Creators & Outlets → Trusted Voices in the Neighborhood

Community Listening → Feedback Loops for Proactive Reporting

AMP Local: Activating Your Community Stack to Power Your Tech Stack

Seeing a map of a neighborhood come to life through asset mapping signaled so much more than just a map. They became potential broadcast beacons for neighborhood channels and updates of what is happening in a community.

Looking at these spaces, we thought about how we can have a regular presence to enable residents to engage with our newsroom directly. We thought about how we could be additive by providing utility in our reporting and distribution of local news & information that represented the communities we serve.

AMP Local: Community Listening Demographic Data from Fall 2023

We began our community listening by enlisting ambassadors to get more insight on what people wanted in their local news. We made it a point to focus on low to moderate income Black and Hispanic neighborhoods that are traditionally underserved. We found that 25–45 year olds were more willing to give us their thoughts on local news. We learned during the 1:1 conversations that many people in these communities did not feel like their neighborhoods were covered well by local news, if at all.

This video gives some insight into the conversations we had during our community listening sessions.

AMP Local: Ear To The Ground Community Listening Sessions

“I would say there were times where incidents were highlighted in our community that wasn’t up to par. And it was a lack of research, and it was a lack of understanding.” — Dominque R., Overtown 33136

We also asked people how they currently get local news and what their preferences were around news delivery. People overwhelmingly preferred video, and they relied on going directly to news apps and websites. We were pleasantly surprised that 77% of the people surveyed had an OTT device at their house, but we also know from researching content consumption that household streaming has increased dramatically.

AMP Local: Community Listening News Preference Data from Fall 2023

People want to know more about their neighborhood, and specifically around ways they can engage with others who also live and work there. By activating these ‘points of connection,’ we can provide a service that connects people to local events and happenings. Our newsroom will produce accountability focused and explanatory content on local issues that is coming directly from having an ear to the ground.

AMP Local will serve communities a healthy dose of local information they want and news they need to know.

AMP Local: Citywide Beats & Neighborhood Beat Audience Preferences

Here is a look at what some people want to see in their local news:

AMP Local: What Leaders Want Focus Group Interviews

“News feels very crime-focused these days, which I think creates a lot of negative stereotypes about people. There’s hardly any discussion about root causes & solutions, or even people’s reality on a daily basis.” — Madi P., North Miami 33181

Stakeholder Engagement → Activating Local Voices & Amplifying Community Issues

In our stakeholder engagement session, it was voiced that people don’t know how to reach out to their local news beyond a tip line. That informed us that people want to engage with newsrooms, and they’re looking to highlight the positive things happening in their communities.

We can create direct lines of communication with communities and enable them to utilize our platform and broadcasting tools. We want to be at the center of local connection and be a resource for local information, which is also how we can get more people to engage with local news that is consequential to them.

AMP Local: Video-first newsroom at the center of community

Potential Outcomes of a Community Powered Tech Stack

Our mission for AMP Local is to build a video-first newsroom and distribution platform that supports communities, by fostering local connection and empowering people with news & information that makes them more engaged in where they live. We want to reach people with local news & information that is consequential to their lives. We want to turn people from ‘unaware to care’ to informed residents who can take action on issues.

So imagine being able to tap into a neighborhood or city and connect to what’s around you through short form video signals & updates of what’s happening near you. Video features that break down topics and issue trackers to keep you up to date on developments and policies.

Channels you can stream by neighborhood and categories — like turning a dial and seeing and experiencing the culture and concerns of a community— _through their voices_. This is the evolution of public access TV and reimagining how local networks can become more active in the communities we serve.

AMP Local: A New Local Network with neighborhood channels, issue trackers, signals & updates.

By launching with citywide beats and activating ‘neighborhood channels,’ it enables us to amplify communities and address issues intentionally. Being embedded locally and providing a way to reach residents above the noise of saturated platforms becomes our strength in how we will serve communities across the country.

When we think about the outcomes we’re after, our vision is for more people to be engaged in where they live, know how to voice their concerns, and feel empowered to act on information. AMP Local being a marketplace of local connection and quality video-first journalism. We see communities and businesses being able to see themselves represented. We strive to support local media outlets in reaching more residents with their reporting, so that they can have a wider impact with their work.

AMP Local: Outcomes For Our Communities

To really understand the impact of our newsroom, we will be tracking community engagement and viewer retention, as well as voter turnout in the neighborhoods we’re covering. We want to make sure the people who are furthest away from power are seen and heard. We aim to effectively help move the needle on policy change and holding elected officials to account.

As we embark on this journey of reimagining local networks, we want to hear from you. What have you seen work in your community, or what would you like to see in your local news? We welcome your feedback and the opportunity to meet with you as we build a local network that helps people feel more connected to where they live.

TL;DR — If I can leave you with this…

People are more likely to engage with something if they can see themselves represented. After asset mapping communities, we saw the untapped potential to collaborate with neighborhood organizations, hyperlocal outlets, creators and social impact leaders. Knowing who is already in the communities we want to serve, we can be additive in how we reach and engage more residents through providing a video-first newsroom and distribution platform.

By activating community voices and amplifying their issues, we move our platform from being ‘passive’ to more interactive and representative of the communities we serve. It gives us an ear to the ground — direct to our newsroom. Our community stack powers our tech stack.

In building these relationships, it becomes a feedback loop, and we can focus on accountability and explanatory journalism to further inform and engage people on what we’re hearing and seeing in communities.

For over 60 years, local networks have been the same passive platform with an anchor at a desk and field reporters who drop in. We have to think about how we can activate community voices and amplify neighborhood issues that matter to people in order to reach a wider audience.

People want to know what’s going on, but it won’t look like local news of the past. We believe AMP Local can be the future of local networks that serves as a bridge for connection across communities. A network that is representative of the diverse communities we serve, with neighborhood voices and issues at the center.

If you want to learn more about what we’re building, please visit vision.amplocal.org. Our vision is big, and we are looking for advisors, investors, and enthusiastic supporters who want to reimagine local networks with us. It’s going to take investment in time, resources, and support across the ecosystem to bring this to life.

So if this sounds like a worthy endeavor, pull up a chair , as you have a seat at the table to help shape the future of local news, discovery, and connection. Now is the time to come together to better serve our communities, as those that move now will inherit the audiences of the future.