Last spring, Lisa Snowden, founder and CEO of the Baltimore Beat, was staffing her newsroom's table at Lexington Market. The Beat had made the 10th anniversary of Freddie Gray’s death in police custody its cover story, with extensive reporting on the 2015 uprising.
A man approached the table, and he had strong opinions about why people had taken to the streets. He said he believed the uprising was not about racial justice. She asked him more about himself. The man is biracial — African American and Asian — and he remembered unpleasant encounters with police when he was young.
The conversation led to discussions about other things going on in the city and about the Beat’s work.
“You have to have the first conversation to have the second one,” Snowden said. “This is not normal journalism. But I don’t think we’re in times for normal journalism.”
That kind of exchange sits at the heart of why a growing number of newsrooms are building live events into their core strategy. While some look to events for possible revenue, a growing number see the value lies in the direct relationships newsrooms can build with the people they serve.
Snowden founded the Beat knowing events would be central to its identity. Baltimore is a majority-Black city, but journalism has mostly remained a predominantly white industry. That gap, she said, has made in-person engagement not optional but essential as attacks on journalists have grown.
“Journalists are very good at learning about other things and communicating those things,” she said. “We are absolutely terrible at talking about our work and how we do our work. We just assume people know — and they don’t.”
Snowden said one of the most powerful things events can do is dismantle assumptions. “It’s easy to call someone your enemy if they’re just a random name or picture,” she said. “When you can see them in real life, that’s much harder. You can see that we go to the same grocery store, we have kids in schools. We both care about our city.”
Over the years, the Beat hosted a range of events, from free community discussions to ticketed gatherings. “Conversations with the Beat” puts reporters in conversation with audiences around important topics, like harm reduction, and for cultural talks focused on Black food and culture in the city.
One project Snowden said was really impactful was a partnership with Wide Angle Youth Media, to create a space for young people to share concerns during an election season, which were later published in the paper.
“People see themselves reflected in it — and that’s important.” Snowden said.
The Beat’s annual Summer Jam — a community party featuring local DJs and musicians — drew 111 attendees last year and turned a profit. Snowden credits short social promotional videos produced by a Howard University intern in the weeks beforehand.
The Lexington Market events were built in partnership with the Baltimore Museum of Art. Snowden says partnerships with museums, civic groups, local bars and cafes help keep costs down and offer touch points with different people who may not know about the Beat.
This year, Baltimore Beat’s event calendar centers on screenings of “The Beat Goes On,” a documentary about the newsroom’s founding and Baltimore’s legacy of Black journalism. A recent screening at Peabody Heights Brewery — which has also partnered with the newsroom on a co-branded beer — brought in about $800 through ticket sales, merchandise and donations. Snowden said future screenings will be free, in an effort to keep the events accessible and bring in more people.
Last year The Baltimore Beat hosted 13 events and generated about $4,256 in profit from them, according to Snowden. Still, she said revenue is not the primary motivation behind most of the newsroom’s gatherings.
“When we’re talking to people, we’re not looking to make money,” Snowden said. “When we’re looking to make money, that’s more when we’re doing the fun things — the parties.”
Her advice to other newsrooms is to avoid trying to organize events alone. “Make sure the first thing you do is find people that will help you. Do not try to do it by yourself,” she said. “It’s not something you can realistically do on a very small staff.”
Events at scale
At the other end of the spectrum sits WBUR in Boston, where Chief Content Officer Victor Hernandez oversees 135 full-time journalists and an event portfolio that spans roughly 100 community gatherings a year — a purpose-built venue, community meet-ups and a full-scale Ideas Festival that features 60 events over two days featuring marquee speakers, policymakers, artists and journalists.
“There are tracks around our coverage or our journalism, everything from climate to health and wellness, to business and innovation and politics.” said Hernandez. “We’ve got some children’s programming, a street fair that’s open for the public, and we have food trucks and a concert stage with performances.”
The festival debuted last year and drew 5,000 attendees and 15 sponsors. Hernandez said the event generated $3.7 million in total revenue, including $1 million from an anonymous donation. That success came the same year federal funding cuts eliminated $1.6 million from WBUR's annual operating budget — making the festival’s timing significant for the organization’s bottom line, explained Hernandez.
“The festival just happens to be our Super Bowl for doing that,” Hernandez said. “But it can be at a local library — whatever works for any institution treating this seriously.”
Eighty percent of WBUR’s first festival attendees were already in the station’s database. Twenty percent were entirely new to the public outlet.
WBUR is among a cadre of newsrooms who have found ways to make revenue with events. A January 2026 World Press Trends Outlook survey by WAN-IFRA found that revenue not print or digital advertising was on the rise. The largest revenue from “other” activities was led by events, with 32.2% of respondents identifying events as an important revenue source.
Hernandez says WBUR’s scale rests on specific advantages: a Boston University relationship that substantially reduces venue costs, a dedicated events staff of eight and an established membership and donor base.
For year-one, WBUR enlisted Evan Smith, the co-founder of The Texas Tribune and architect of its annual TribFest, as a consultant. By year-two, the station had developed its own operational playbook that has allowed the staff to guide this year’s production.
Beyond the flagship event, WBUR conducts 10 to 15 community listening sessions a year, including a targeted series of six library sessions last year in predominantly Hispanic and Latino communities. Hispanic and Latino listeners have grown from 3% to 8% of the station’s live audience over three years — a shift Hernandez attributes in part to that sustained presence.
“It’s important that we are out in our communities,” he said.
What the research shows
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The American Press Institute ran a live events spring cohort in 2024, working with local newsrooms through a grant funded project designed to reduce the risk of experimentation.
Emily Ristow, API’s director of local newsroom transformation, said findings from that work align with what practitioners on the ground describe: for most smaller local newsrooms, events are not primarily a revenue mechanism.
“Events weren’t so much a revenue stream as more of an engagement play," she said.
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API gave each newsroom from the cohort $5,000 to test ideas for a series of events. Some newsrooms earned money through sponsorships and tickets sales, but Ristow says the most meaningful benefits were relational. The program produced planning resources and templates to help other newsrooms get started.
She also flags a fear she hears consistently: what if nobody shows up? “They get nervous about even promoting it — and then of course no one knows about it,” she said. Her answer: start small; commit fully; and build in flexibility.
Mission alignment matters at every level, she said not just in event concept but in choices of venue, caterer and partner. “If it’s not serving your mission, I don’t think it’s worth doing,” she said.
Partnering to meet needs
In March 2024 KOSU public radio in Oklahoma and Osage News — the tribal newspaper led by editor Shannon Shaw Duty — ran a bus tour of Osage County tied to the Oscar-nominated film “Killers of the Flower Moon.”
When the film was released in 2023, a commercial tour company in Pawhuska was already offering tours of the county focused on murder sites. Allison Herrera, then an Indigenous affairs reporter at KOSU who had also produced a podcast about Osage land loss, saw a chance to do something meaningful for the community.
“There’s a lot of interest in this movie from Osages and non-Osages,” she said. “Let’s put together a tour that is led by Osage people — not just about the murders, but Osage culture and lives.”
The two newsrooms had worked together before on a 2022 listening event around abortion rights in Indian country. For the film tour the collaboration was more elaborate: KOSU handled the buses, radio coverage and tour scripts; Osage News organized the venue, arranged a panel of Osage speakers and hired cooks to serve a traditional Osage meal.
Shaw Duty — whose own family was among those affected during the Osage Reign of Terror — had final approval on all decisions. Osage elder Billy Ponca served as the tour’s community ambassador. The event included a traditional Osage meal prepared and served by Osage women, an intentional choice Herrera said reflected the importance of communal meals within Osage culture.
“It was about the culture,” she said. “It was about people’s lives on the reservation."
The event sold out quickly enough that organizers added another bus. A grant covered food, staffing and operational costs so the project would not strain newsroom budgets. The group decided to use the grant to keep ticket costs low at $25. A post-event article from Shaw Duty detailed for API shared learnings and costs. In the end, they earned $2,500.
The collaboration also demonstrated how partnerships can combine different strengths. KOSU brought event production experience and infrastructure, while Osage News brought community relationships and cultural expertise.
“It wasn’t this top-down partnership,” Herrera said.
For Herrera, the purpose of the work connected directly to journalism’s mission. “It builds community,” she said. “That’s our North Star.”
Diane Sylvester is an award-winning 30-year multimedia news veteran. She works as a reporter, editor and newsroom strategist. She can be reached at diane.povcreative@gmail.com.
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