The Associated Press announced a new content sharing agreement with The Maine Monitor today that will enhance the content The Monitor can offer its readers and broaden the reach of The Monitor’s reporting.
The initiative is part of an effort by the AP to expand the reach of local news ahead of the presidential election and increase access to the AP’s fact-based, nonpartisan journalism.
The AP announced that in addition to The Maine Monitor two other nonprofit newsrooms — Deep South Today and The Nevada Independent — are also joining the initiative.
The collaboration has two prongs: Each nonprofit news outlet will share AP content with its audience, and the AP will offer stories from the nonprofit newsrooms with its members and customers, supplementing the news agency’s own coverage of Maine, Mississippi and Nevada.
The new collaborations follow arrangements that the AP announced in May with CalMatters, Honolulu Civil Beat, Montana Free Press, Nebraska Journalism Trust and South Dakota News Watch, along with a content sharing arrangement between the AP and The Texas Tribune announced in March.
“As we gear up for the 2024 U.S. presidential election, AP’s efforts to expand access to factual, nonpartisan journalism are more critical than ever,” said AP U.S. News Director Josh Hoffner. “By working with nonprofit news outlets in Maine, Mississippi and Nevada we are able to reach local audiences and deliver the facts and information they need about issues that matter.”
“We are excited to work with the AP and expand the reach of The Maine Monitor‘s nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative reporting on issues impacting people in Maine, many of which — rural health care, impacts of climate change, opioid recovery, judicial accountability, care for aging citizens — are national, and solutions being tried in Maine can inform discussions elsewhere,” said Micaela Schweitzer-Bluhm, executive director of The Maine Monitor.
