How this NYC news outlet uses social media to act as a lifeline for immigrant communities

NextDoor, the neighborhood-based social network, has a reputation for divisive rhetoric, whether it’s fostering fear around local crime or playing host to arguments . But for nonprofit newsroom Documented, it’s a potent tool for understanding New York City’s Caribbean community and helping deliver more relevant stories.



“The journalism profession has always functioned by deciding what is news or not, and then sending it out to users without ever understanding what the users need,” said Nicolás Rios, audience and community director for Documented. “We have decided to counter that.”



Established in 2018, Documented has become an example of immigrant-focused journalism, based in part on the publication’s new approach to utilizing social networks. Instead of seeing these platforms as one-way methods of distribution, Documented uses them to interact, build trust, and source stories from Chinese immigrants via WeChat, and the Caribbean diaspora via NextDoor. 



Posting on these platforms remains novel for journalists—NextDoor doesn’t really have a content creator function, so the publication’s reporter, Ralph Thomassaint Joseph, uses his personal page to post. But the real innovation for Documented has been its focus on audience research and engagement. Exhaustive community feedback sessions, conducted by correspondents April Xu and Thomassaint Joseph over five months last year, collected insight from more than 1,100 New Yorkers. 



Documented, which publishes in English, Spanish, Chinese, and Creole, has roughly 100,000 users a month. It has channeled these insights into a number of guides and stories, focused on the everyday economic concerns of their audience. Pieces such as how families of asylum seekers can access prepaid debit cards from the city , a wage theft tracker, and an explainer about the minimum wage for delivery app workers , stand in stark contrast to traditional, more negative coverage of these communities. 



Journalism for immigrant communities, sometimes labeled ethnic news outlets, has suffered along with the rest of the media industry. A Northwestern University study published last year found roughly a quarter of such outlets that were active in 2020 had shuttered by 2023. More broadly, news outlets across the board have faced cuts and pulled back on immigration reporting. Add language barriers, and it’s no surprise the intended audience for this coverage feels underserved, stereotyped by mainstream media, and more prone to receiving misinformation . That leaves big gaps. In New York City, there are roughly 614,000 Chinese immigrants , a city unto itself. Documented’s nonprofit model—about $2.2 million of its $2.6 million budget last year came from foundations—has allowed it to put its focus on these readers, not ad sales.



Documented’s efforts represent a shift in the media landscape, with more publications seeking alternative means to reach traditionally underserved groups. Jesse Hardman is the creator of the Listening Post Collective, an organization that helps foster better news coverage for underserved communities, which has worked with Documented on their surveys. He said part of those new solutions has been an embrace of technology and distribution channels.



“Just translating something into Spanish doesn’t mean it’s going to have any impact,” Hardman said.



Sharing over NextDoor and WeChat, which started last year, made sense, based on what potential readers told researchers; 65% of Chinese immigrants got their news from WeChat, versus 55% from newspapers and websites. Rios also said they found many respondents in the Caribbean diaspora identified their community as a neighborhood, like Flatbush, as opposed to a particular population, like immigrants from Jamaica, which informed the decision to use NextDoor.



Documented’s use of technology shows how it’s taking a different approach to defining and reaching its audience. Cofounder Mazin Sidahmed compares the situation to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Most working class, immigrant audience members need coverage reflecting basic, everyday economic and political issues, information that can help them today. Journalists tend to focus on the top of the pyramid, Sidahmed said, looking at flashy, investigative stories, or high-minded pieces that they can chat about with friends.



“​​The entire industry is focused on that small sliver of the population,” he said. “We actually need to start thinking about creating products and news for this huge slice of the population that’s not being served by our industry.”



Sidahmed, who reported on the Syrian refugee crisis out of Beirut before coming to New York and cofounding Documented, said the nonprofit has had its own learning curve. A dual-language reporter who spoke Arabic, Sidhamed was accustomed to talking to sources in Arabic, publishing in English, and realizing those quoted in his stories might never read them. With Documented, he initially thought translation alone was key to expanding reach. But after looking at analytics and the traffic patterns of English and Spanish translations of the same article, it was clear translation alone wasn’t generating engagement. The site has maintained its multilingual approach and language options, but made new efforts to connect with non-English readers.  



A different definition of success requires a different approach to metrics and measuring, said Rios. The number of direct messages sent via WeChat, or the number of times a post is liked on NextDoor might pale in comparison to times a reader views an article online, but these actions represent an engaged user. Rios calls it “valuable currency,” which is adding up. WeChat is now responsible for 10% of the site’s traffic, which shows how embracing new outreach methods can broaden the mission and impact of the site, and prove to foundations that it’s a good investment.



Documented sees its approach working especially well during an election season that could have a significant impact on immigrants. In a media landscape rife with misinformation, Rios believes their work, and the time spent building a community publication, is more important than ever: “We are inoculating people against this misinformation.”