We expect news sources in all media to report on fires, shootings, terrorism, train wrecks and tornados. However, what many readers and journalists question is the prevalence of stories seemingly obsessed with the dark, dire and tragic side of the human experience at the expense of what people are doing to counter the catastrophic.
With that in mind, I pitched the “Solutions Journalism: Writing that Makes a Difference” session for ASJA 2015. I had met Keith Hammonds at a sustainability conference in Cleveland in the fall, and he was interested in addressing his work in promoting solutions-based reporting and writing and telling the whole story to writers and editors throughout the U.S.
Keith serves as the COO of the Solutions Journalism Network, a nonprofit founded two years ago by award-winning journalists and authors David Bornstein, Tina Rosenberg and Courtney Martin. He helped me assemble panelists who provided great insights into how solutions journalism is gaining – or perhaps regaining – a foothold, since, as Keith says, it has always been a part of journalism.
In his opening remarks, Keith defined solutions journalism as credible and compelling reporting about the responses to social problems. “Good solutions stories tell us what the problem is and what the root causes of that problem are, but also identify a response to that problem,” he said. “They also look at how and why the response is working or not.”
Peter Catapano, an editor in The New York Times Opinion section since 2005, discussed working closely with Bornstein and Rosenberg to develop their “Fixes” column on social innovation and change in 2010. “You have to make an article appeal to a general reader, not somebody who’s only interested in this kind of world of development or social change, because readers don’t like to feel excluded,” he said.
Discussing one of her recent articles for Yahoo News where she is a Senior National Affairs Writer, Liz Goodwin said: “There’s a sense that the worse the circumstances, the better the story’s going to be, but a story can have impact even if you’re not focusing on the negative.”
“There are always ways to give your storytelling some gravitas and drama, and you can still use stylistic writing, but they don’t have to be sanitized, super positive pieces,” explained Nona Willis Aronowitz, the editor of The Slice, a new features and essay section at Talking Points Memo.
Peter added that his two venerable columnists taught him that their most powerful stories include solutions that can be scaled up easily and by many individuals, organizations or cities.