Founded in 2012, The American Media Institute has grown rapidly by attracting top writers and winning the respect of a growing number of major news outlets. The reach of our stories includes the few hundred thousand who read the story in its initial newspaper publication and the millions more who hear the story on radio, see it on television, read it in online news services, or chat about it on social media. AMI has a demonstrated track record of success. Philanthropy Roundtable Magazine says: “AMI stories have fueled congressional investigations and stirred media controversy, and they’ve been picked up by big aggregators like the Drudge Report.” The New York Observer says: “Journalism heaven may not exist but American Media Institute…does present a journalistic haven for many former newspaper editors and reporters.”

Measuring Success

AMI measures its progress by total impressions per story: An impression is one person seeing or hearing a story one time, the same measurement used by advertisers and public relations firms.

We have retained an independent of media monitoring and analysis firm, as an independent third party to count and calculate our media impressions.

How We Measure Our Impact

Using independent data, we analyze impressions in three ways:

1. Total impressions per story is a standard measure in advertising. In 2015, we earned more than 400 million total impressions, with an average audience reach of 45 million per story.
2. Publicity value, a standard measure in public relations, calculates how much it would cost to reach an identical audience through paid advertising. Even though we provide content for free, this metric can determine the dollar value of our efforts. If advertisers would have to spend $7 million to reach an audience that we can reach for $10,000, we consider that a victory.
3. Cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM) is a standard measure of message effectiveness, and AMI uses it to measure the cost efficiency of its stories. An advertisement that attains a CPM of $0.10 is rated as very cost-effective. By contrast, AMI’s target CPM is $0.05, which drives us toward both broadening our audience and lowering our costs. We are often at or below that target CPM, and we hope to maintain it through 2016.