Hearken

Hearken

Hearken is an open-source community engagement platform that helps newsrooms better connect with their audience. It provides tools for news organizations to crowdsource story ideas, gather feedback, and interact with readers.
crowdsourcing audience-engagement community newsrooms journalism

Hearken: Open-Source Community Engagement Platform

Hearken helps newsrooms connect with their audience through community engagement tools for crowdsource story ideas, gather feedback, and interact with readers.

What is Hearken?

Hearken is an open-source community engagement platform designed to help news organizations better connect with their audience. It provides a suite of tools to facilitate two-way communication between newsrooms and their readers.

Some key features of Hearken include:

  • Crowdsourcing - Newsrooms can gather story ideas and personal experiences from readers by posting assignments and surveys.
  • Comments - Readers can leave comments on articles and journalists can respond, facilitating productive discussions.
  • Newsletter - Readers can sign up for email newsletters catered to their interests based on their input.
  • Analytics - Newsrooms get data and insights on the types of stories and coverage readers find most valuable.

By leveraging Hearken, news organizations can tap into the wisdom of their community to produce more reader-centric coverage. This ultimately builds loyalty and trust with the audience. Hearken is free, open source software originally developed by the American Press Institute.

Hearken Features

Features

  1. Allows newsrooms to crowdsource story ideas from their audience
  2. Provides tools for gathering feedback on stories and topics from readers
  3. Enables newsrooms to directly interact with and respond to their audience
  4. Open-source web platform that is free to install and use

Pricing

  • Open Source

Pros

Improves reader engagement and loyalty by making them feel heard

Generates fresh, reader-driven story ideas and perspectives

Gathers actionable insights into what readers care about

Free and open source makes it accessible to any newsroom

Cons

Requires effort to actively moderate and respond to audience submissions

May receive off-topic or unhelpful suggestions from some readers

Needs promotion to generate consistent reader participation

As open source, lacks dedicated support services

Official Links


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