How to build an equitable partnership to reach new audiences
In June 2020, WFAE in Charlotte, North Carolina initiated a partnership with La Noticia, a Spanish-language newspaper serving North Carolina, to better serve their region’s growing Latino population. In an episode of the Better News podcast, Ju-Don Marshall, WFAE’s chief content officer, and Hilda Gurdian, publisher of La Noticia, talked about the partnership and their experience with a Report for America reporter who works for both news organizations.
Here are some key takeaways and tips:
Identify the right partner. Whatever your targeted community or audience, make sure your partner organization shares your values, your journalism ethics, and your mission to serve your community. Approach the partnership with the understanding that it will be an equitable partnership in which both partners will learn from each other and teach each other.
Before you launch a partnership, talk through goals and expectations. When WFAE and La Noticia became partners, they applied to jointly host a Report for America reporter. In preparing the application they talked extensively about goals and expectations, but also about the workflow, deliverables, mentoring and feedback, how to address challenges.
The reporter has two assignment editors – one from WFAE and one from La Noticia. The editors meet with the reporter each week to decide on assignments, and one editor takes the lead on editing that week. For WFAE, the reporter produces an audio story in English and a digital story. For La Noticia, the reporter writes the story in Spanish. All stories are crosslinked on both websites, encouraging the audience to read or share the other language version by going to the partner site.
Communicate, communicate, communicate. Beyond the weekly editorial meetings, station and newspaper management meet and talk frequently to evaluate the partnership and the content produced; editors consult each other frequently on stories and share metrics and other insights. WFAE and La Noticia share a slack channel between the two organizations. Management is committed to ‘radical candor’ in conversations and does not shy away from difficult or sensitive issues.
Find a unicorn reporter. If you are trying to reach a Spanish-speaking audience, this person needs to have strong reporting skills and be able to speak and write fluently in English and Spanish. Ideally, they would also have broadcast experience and be culturally competent in Latino communities. Originally WFAE and La Noticia expected the reporter to be able to do two or three stories per week, but discovered that was too ambitious for a story that needed to be ready for so many different platforms. They adjusted. Because of the coverage this partnership generated, their candidate pool for this job has been strong. If you are trying to reach other communities, the reporter needs to be culturally competent in that community.
Have a marketing plan to reach your targeted community. You are doing something new that the community doesn’t expect. Communicate that with community leaders, in focus groups, and learn about news and information needs before you launch.