Rachel White tells us how an AP initiative is helping state and local news outlets

On the latest “What Works” podcast, Ellen and Dan talk with Rachel White, CEO of the Associated Press Fund for Journalism. Rachel joined the nonprofit AP Fund for Journalism in 2024, after a 10-year run with The Guardian, the one-time print newspaper in the U.K. that has become a global digital powerhouse.

In 2016, White became president of  theguardian.org, a nonprofit organization she helped create that raises tax-deductible funds to support The Guardian’s journalism. The AP Foundation has a similar mission but is laser-focused on state and local news outlets all over the U.S. The AP Fund is expanding. Fifty news organizations have just joined, for a total of 100 newsrooms. The foundation aims to increase that number to 150 by the end of 2026. News outlets get help with reach and strategy to achieve financial stability.

Note: We asked White about financial pressures facing the AP following decisions in 2024 by the Gannett and McClatchy newspaper chains to drop their membership in order to save money. And earlier this week, after this podcast was recorded, the AP announced that it would seek buyouts as it pivots away from newspaper journalism to visual journalism, new revenue sources and AI.

Dan has a Quick Take on Local News Day, which is this Thursday, April 9, and billed as “a national day of action connecting communities with trusted local news.”

Ellen’s Quick Take is on an opinion column apocalypse in Fargo, North Dakota. The Fargo Forum, a locally owned news outlet, has forced out three long-running columnists. Why? Take a wild guess. Here’s one headline on a recent column by journalist Jim Shaw: “Our local leaders oppose free and fair elections.” He’s now an ex-columnist.

And a big hat-tip to Alex Ip, a Gen Z publisher and editor at thexylom.com, which explores how communities are influenced and shaped by science. Alex broke the news about Fargo on social media.

A summary of our conversation

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Rachel White, the inaugural CEO of the AP Fund for Local Journalism, joined “What Works” co-hosts Dan Kennedy and Ellen Clegg to discuss the fund’s origins, its rapid expansion, and its vision for strengthening the local news ecosystem across the United States.

The AP Fund was conceived by the Associated Press a few years ago, before White came on board, out of a recognition that the AP has long sat at the center of the state and local news ecosystem. Leadership saw both a responsibility to support that ecosystem and an opportunity to secure the AP’s own future as a provider of independent public service journalism. The result was a tax-exempt organization incorporated in 2024. White was hired shortly after, and in April 2025 the fund launched with its first 50 pilot news organizations — many drawn from a successful AP election project funded by the Knight Foundation and Google that had placed AP content and services in nonprofit swing-state newsrooms.

Now roughly a year in, the fund is expanding to 100 newsrooms, with a goal of 150 by the end of 2026 and 300 by the end of 2028. The second cohort reflects lessons learned from the pilot phase. Newsrooms with five or more staff members tended to make better use of available content, as did those with some appetite for breaking news. But White was careful not to draw too many rigid conclusions. The fund’s work, she explained, is not simply a matter of making AP content available. Staff actively reach out to member newsrooms with story ideas, alert them when governors are speaking, and provide intensive support during major breaking news events — as they did with Minnesota newsrooms during a period of sustained statewide crises this past year.

The new cohort includes three distinct subgroups: Spanish-language outlets, college and university news organizations, and newsrooms in border states across the Southwest. The Spanish-language cohort reflects both the success of Connect to Arizona in the pilot phase and an awareness of the particular challenges facing outlets that may employ undocumented journalists or operate in environments where reporting can feel unsafe. The college cohort targets university-affiliated outlets that are sometimes overlooked by the broader local news movement, including some that serve as the paper of record for their surrounding communities. The border-state cohort was shaped by a pattern of shared editorial interests — immigration, reproductive rights, and water policy — that cut across newsrooms in the region.

Kennedy raised the question of fit for hyperlocal outlets, which form the core of “What Works”‘ coverage. White responded that very small, community-focused newsrooms can still benefit from AP content when the right moment arises — an Olympic athlete from a small town, for example, or a policy change with local implications. The key, she said, is helping newsrooms see how national and global content can be localized in ways that serve their specific audiences.

Clegg asked about the AP’s own financial pressures, including the 2024 departures of Gannett and McClatchy as paying members. White said that the fund is in active conversation with the AP’s membership team about what sustainable models might look like for struggling news organizations that can no longer afford full-price service — though no firm plans have been announced.

White came to the AP Fund from philanthropic roles at The Guardian, New America, and the World Wildlife Fund. She said the AP Fund’s most distinctive feature is the way philanthropy and editorial mission are tightly interwoven: supporting local news and sustaining the AP itself are, in her view, two sides of the same coin.