New England Newspaper & Press Association

In this free, 75-minute Poynter webinar, you can master the tools to connect Washington decisions to local stories — essential coverage as the 2026 elections approach.

By the end of this course, you will:

• Understand the customary realm of state decision and policy making in education, elections, health care and the environment.
• Examine the administration’s use of a wide range of federal funds to pressure states to adhere to executive branch policies.
• Evaluate the flexibility available to the executive branch in deploying federal law enforcement agents.
• Be familiar with the data on trends in the number of federal agents.
• Have a grounding in the legal framework around using federal agents.
• Be familiar with frameworks to assess democratic practices at the state level.
• Have a list of public safety and law enforcement performance metrics at the local level.

This free Local Media Association session will showcase how to use audience data to make smart editorial and business decisions. We’ll show how local editors and publishers can leverage data tools to boost engagement, improve coverage, and increase advertiser ROI.

Key Takeaways:

– Using analytics to align coverage with community interest
– How data drives newsletter performance and local ad campaigns
– Best practices for training small publishers to make metrics actionable
– Real-world examples of turning data insights into growth

When personal identity and professional beat intersect, journalism gains powerful depth. This webinar features journalists who report on issues that directly impact the communities they belong to, such as reporters who are trans covering trans rights or reporters who are immigrants reporting on immigration. Join the Trans Journalists Association and the Institute for Independent Journalists in an honest conversation with reporters and editors who will share best practices for navigating these dual roles with integrity, empathy, and rigor. Learn how lived experience can inform reporting while upholding the highest standards of journalistic ethics and impact.

Speakers:

• Drew Costley, New Orleans-based freelance journalist and editor
• Denny Agassi, freelance journalist focused on LGBTQ+ rights
• Annabel Rocha, Chicago-based freelance journalist covering reproductive rights
• Ruxandra Guidi, Arizona-based independent journalist, creator of the podcast Happy Forgetting

Moderator: Adam Rhodes, IRE training director, freelance journalist, and TJA board member emeritus

Join Second Street for our 16th annual 30in30! We’ve pulled together dozens of ideas to help you achieve your goals for the rest of 2025, 2026, and beyond. We’ll help you create a plan to increase your revenue, grow your database, develop a deeper level of audience engagement, or a combination of all three!

Whether you’re looking for new ways to improve an existing contest program or your company is just getting started with promotions, you’ll leave with a calendar year’s worth of ideas. From the top advertiser categories to the best ways to build your database – we’re bringing you 30 promotion themes and 90+ ideas in a rapid-fire 30-minute session!

Webinar Highlights:

• Promotion categories to increase your revenue
• Topics to engage your target audiences
• Contest themes to drive significant database growth
• Over 90 contest & promotion ideas

Join Poynter at 1 p.m. Eastern on Thursday, Oct. 16, for a focused 75-minute webinar to learn about climate policy changes. This free training covers using Atlas database tools and resources for tracking federal rollbacks locally. Hear how the Clean Economy Tracker informed reporting on rural communities. Practice hands-on training on a reporting database to get the right data for your stories.

Watch live for an interactive session with Q&A, plus recorded content and resource materials for ongoing reference.

Course offered free of charge thanks to the support of our sponsor, The Joyce Foundation.