This practical how-to guide was designed with media organizations like yours in mind. In it, you will find actionable advice for starting and growing a digital community for your newsroom.
Digital communities are distinct from traditional social media accounts, as they rely on direct and participatory relationships between the hosts, journalists, and digital community managers in a newsroom and members of the public.
If you want to build a news community, strengthen audience trust, and truly interact with your readers or listeners online — this guide is for you!
<aside> 💡
This guide includes some tips specific to the chat app Discord — though it focuses on tools and techniques that apply across platforms. Discord tips will be highlighted in yellow.
</aside>
This resource was created by KQED and participants in the Spring 2025 Digital Community Fellowship. A special thank you to our newsroom partners at KALW, KVCR, and KZYX whose insights helped shape the foundation of this guide, and to the many community volunteers on Discord who contributed their time, suggestions, and additional best practices. This project was supported in part by the Knight Foundation and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Additional thanks to the researchers, engineers, designers and community leaders at New_ Public, whose Local Lab and Public Spaces Incubator inspired and informed this project.