Submit a session for LION Publishers’ 2025 Independent News Sustainability Summit

Hosted by LION Publishers, the Independent News Sustainability Summit is a national conference focused on sustainability for independent news businesses.

We believe that long-term sustainability exists at the intersection of operational resilience, financial health, and journalistic impact. And the Summit showcases these pillars through a mix of keynotes, hands-on workshops, training, inspiration and best practices, community-building, and peer learning.

This year, over 500 independent news leaders and supporters are expected to attend our conference in St. Louis, MO, from September 3 to 5. And we’re now seeking session and speaker proposals from our community to help us develop an agenda that will inspire and empower attendees to build more sustainable news businesses. All proposals are due by 8 p.m. ET on April 2, 2025.

Summit Tracks

Sessions will be categorized into three tracks.

• Journalistic impact: Learn how to build a newsroom strategy that starts with your audience. This track focuses on community listening and aligning editorial decisions with audience needs. Explore best practices in audience research, engagement strategies, and analytics to better understand your audiences. Learn how to define, track, communicate, and measure the impact of your journalism using key metrics.
• Financial health: Gain insights into building a financially sustainable news business. Sessions in this track will cover revenue generation strategies, and the skills needed to develop revenue streams such as advertising, reader revenue, sponsorships, and philanthropy. Explore tools for financial management including budgeting and building financial reserves.
• Operational resilience: Explore strategies and initiatives that strengthen your newsroom’s long-term sustainability. This track covers staff well-being and burnout prevention, as well as broader operational priorities such as strategic and business planning and workflow improvement. Learn how to create efficient processes, support your team, and build a resilient newsroom that can adapt to challenges and opportunities.

Summit Themes and Topics

Tracks will explore themes and topics related to success in these specific areas. 

We’re seeking session ideas and speakers to address these core themes in support of independent news businesses. We are interested in session ideas, subject matter expertise, and first-hand experiences related to:

• Revenue generation ideas, including strategies and skills for specific revenue streams such as advertising, reader revenue, sponsorships, and philanthropy
• Business and strategic planning
• Financial management for news businesses, including budgeting and building up reserves
• Audience research, development, and engagement
• Strategies to foster diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging in the workplace
• Impact measurement for journalism
• Hiring, onboarding, and retaining staff, including non-editorial staff
• Management and leadership best practices for news leaders
• Tools and tech stacks for independent news businesses
• Product development

Pitch a complete session idea, including the concept, format, and speaker(s) using this form. We’re happy to work with you to refine your session idea to align with the conference goals and other programming.

Session formats

• Fireside chat: A conversation between two speakers, showcasing best practices through a casual, engaging discussion, followed by Q&A.
• Workshop: Interactive, 90-minute sessions where participants work in small groups and leave with a tangible takeaway, such as a worksheet or a co-created deliverable.
• Panel: A structured, moderated discussion in which a group of experts or practitioners share insights on a specific topic in front of an audience.
• Lightning chats: Quick presentations by various speakers on a shared topic. Each lightning talk should last 5–7 minutes at most and include no more than four speakers to allow time for Q&A.
• AMAs (Ask Me Anything): Sessions where speakers answer questions on hot topics or share best practices in an open Q&A format.

For inspiration, here are some sample session ideas and their formats:

• Do less with more: How to combat burnout through ruthless prioritization (workshop) 
  • Description: Burnout is the scourge of the journalism world, and we can’t continue to “do more with less” or self-care our way to healthy workloads. This hands-on session will help news leaders create a Stop Doing List to identify the best use of their time, money, and energy – and what to let go of.
• Journalism+: Going beyond news to meet community information and civic engagement needs (panel)
  • Description: Journalism is a public good, but an increasing number of organizations are thinking more broadly about how to meet and measure impact. This session explores how news businesses are using the tools of education, community organizing, events, and engagement to meet community information needs.

Criteria for sessions

We will use the following criteria to assess potential sessions:

• Alignment with the Summit’s core themes. 
• A diversity of viewpoints that represent communities and experiences from across the independent media landscape.
• We will prioritize sessions that are engaging and participatory, including sessions that involve attendees creating or co-creating products, tools or resources they can apply to their news businesses.
• Experience level and expertise of speakers in the independent media ecosystem and/or in relation to the core themes.

Support for speakers

We encourage anyone with an engaging idea or relevant experience to complete a submission. We’ll work with you to refine your idea, match you with a comfortable session format, and provide you with resources to help you prepare. If you’re a first-time conference speaker who needs more support, we’re here to provide extra guidance!

Other things to keep in mind

• Proposals for session ideas or speakers are due by 8 p.m. ET on April 2.
• Conference sessions should be 60 minutes in length. Workshops can be up to 90 minutes.
• LION will provide microphones and a projector for each session.
• Speakers will receive a free ticket for the Summit. Please note that this doesn’t include the LION Awards Ceremony & Dinner. Travel reimbursement may be available based on need and availability (up to $650).