The Evolution of Solutions Journalism
How solutions journalism grew out of several other journalistic practices
Traditional news media reporting tends to spotlight problems and conflict in society. Journalists have begun to wonder if it is possible to report news without overwhelming audiences with negative and depressing stories. In 2010, New York Times journalists David Bornstein and Tina Rosenberg launched a column called “Fixes” that highlighted solutions to problems and whether they worked for the community that implemented the solution. This column became a precursor to a new form of journalism called solutions journalism.
Solutions journalism is an approach to journalism that focuses on reporting on the existing responses to societal problems. Journalists approach solutions journalism stories by examining what is being done to solve an issue. The profession of journalism needs more than the watchdog role, otherwise it is incomplete, according to David Bornstein. Solutions journalism is meant to complement other approaches to journalism including the watchdog, or investigative, reporting role of journalism.
The practice “seek[s] to rebalance the news, so that every day people are exposed to stories that help them understand problems and challenges, and stories that show potential ways to respond” according to the Solutions Journalism Network. In an effort to restore trust in journalists, solutions journalism engages the public by showing them how communities are responding to their problems by exposing people to different solutions including downfalls and challenges associated with those solutions.
The Solutions Journalism Network’s stated that the approach “offers a more comprehensive and representative view of the world, and it circulates timely knowledge to help society self-correct, spotlighting adaptive responses that people and communities can learn from.”
The Path to Solutions Journalism
Solutions journalism stems from a culmination of several journalistic experiments that reflect a never-ending goal of the profession trying to figure out how to engage audiences with the news.
“Solutions journalism is in the lineage of the civic journalism movement, of all those movements,” journalist and communications researcher Kathryn Thier said.
Peace Journalism
The emphasis of conflict, or highlighting two opposing sides, may send the message to readers that common ground is not possible. As a response to the Vietnam War news coverage in 1965, Johan Galtung created the concept of peace journalism. In their article, Responses to Peace Journalism, Jake Lynch and Annabel McGoldrick described peace journalism as a decision by journalists to prioritize nonviolent reactions to conflict including war in their reporting. They stated that peace journalism “creates opportunities for society at large to consider and value nonviolent responses to conflict.”
Much like solutions journalism, peace journalism doesn’t concentrate on reporting on conflict or problems. The Center for Global Peace explained that peace journalism is not openly pushing for peace but works to reframe journalists’ narratives in order to “give peace a chance.” Nor, is peace journalism attempting to rid the news cycle on the conflict, but it instead notes that there are alternative ways to approach conflict stories.
Peace journalists, however, have faced criticism that they violate the journalistic objectivity principle by promoting peace. In Journalists as Peacekeeping Force? Peace Journalism and Mass Communication Theory, Professor of communication and researcher at LMU Munich Thomas Hanitzsch defined “peace journalism as a programme or frame of journalistic news coverage which contributes to the process of making and keeping peace respectively to the peaceful settlement of conflicts.” However, in Situating Peace Journalism in Journalism Studies: A Critical Appraisal, he explained that peace journalism inflates the control journalists possess over audience members and political decisions.
Civic and Public Journalism
Public or civic journalism didn’t gain ground until the 1990s even though it has existed since the early 1920s. In Conversation Through Journalism: Searching for Organizing Principles of Public and Citizen Journalism, Seong Jae Min stated the principles stemming from these approaches made journalism more democratic by encouraging citizens to participate in the construction of news with journalists.
In A Brief History of Public Journalism, Paul Voakes created a definition of public journalism that supports the citizen-journalist collaborative ideal. According to Voakes, public journalism:
- Listens systematically to the stories and ideas of citizens while protecting the freedom to choose what to cover.
- Examines alternative ways to frame stories on important community issues.
- Chooses frames that stand the best chance to stimulate citizen deliberation and build public understanding of issues.
- Takes the initiative to report on major public problems in a way that advances public knowledge of possible solutions and the values served by alternative courses of action.
- Pays continuing and systematic attention to how well and how credibly it is communicating with the public.
Journalist Jay Rosen explained that civic journalism helped communities participate in political events instead of passively reading about them. Public journalism is similar to solutions journalism, but it instead focuses on solving the issues in collaboration with the community rather than reporting on a particular solution.
The Public Journalism Network stated that journalists “must articulate a public philosophy for journalism that helps journalists reach deeper into the communities they serve” by actively listening to citizen input and framing narratives around community input. Critics argued that civic and public journalism lacked impartiality because the practice of journalists involving themselves in a solution meant that they could not be neutral when reporting on the issue.
Furthermore, the approach worked better in theory than practice. Public journalism required large amount of resources, event planning and participant scheduling for news organizations.
Citizen Journalism
Citizen journalism is a practice that recognizes community engagement similar to civic journalism. However, citizens typically bypass traditional news organizations and report on their community themselves thanks to the advent of digital publishing and social media technologies. In The Future Is Here, But Do News Media Companies See It?, Shayne Bowman and Chris Willis described citizen journalism as “the act of a citizen, or group of citizens, playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information.”
People living and working in communities possess a deeper understanding of situations and events than most journalists. According to Melissa Wall, in Citizen Journalism: A Retrospective on What We Know, an Agenda For What We Don’t, the first citizen journalists were bloggers using social media platforms and websites to share information.
The criticism is that citizen journalists create news content even though most do not possess formal journalism training. In a 2009 editorial piece Let’s Abolish the Term ‘Citizen Journalists’ from The Digital Journalist, Dirck Halstead argued that they are citizen news gatherers rather than citizen journalists because they do not have the professional ethical and verification training as educated journalists. And as citizens, it is impossible for them to be objective when reporting on subjects.
Citizen journalism changed how people viewed journalists. Kathryn Thier said that she believes these movements signal the importance for journalism to reflect on why all of these new types of journalism are emerging.
“Something is going on in journalism right now, in which journalists realize that something needs to change,” Thier said. “The old ways that we used to tell stories might not be the end all be all.”
Constructive Journalism
In Elements of Constructive Journalism: Characteristics, Practical Application and Audience Valuation, Cathrine Gyldensted explained that constructive journalism “employs a public-oriented perspective and seeks to cover current affairs and news, adding solution-, action- and future-oriented perspectives.” It is an approach in which journalists report on both solutions and public actions that can be taken by the public to address the problem.
Popular within Europe, it stems from the positive psychology movement that emphasizes researching positive constructs such as resilience and happiness. Positive psychology is “a science of positive subjective experience, positive individual traits, and positive institutions promises to improve quality of life and prevent the pathologies that arise when life is barren and meaningless,” according to Martin E. P. Seligman and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in Positive Psychology: An Introduction.
Constructive journalism seeks to engage the audiences in public life by writing narratives focusing on how each community member can play a role in addressing societal wrongs. In Constructive Journalism: Concepts, Practices, And Discourses, Jelle Mast, Roel Coesemans, and Martina Temmerman state that an increase of positivity in stories could help lessen consumers’ news fatigue. They determined that constructive journalism “can be about conflicts and problems as long as they are covered in a way that empowers the readers and informs them about possible solutions.”
Similar to solutions journalism, the goal of constructive journalism was to encourage journalists to reconsider their tendency to focus on negativity and conflict. However, unlike solutions journalism, constructive journalism encouraged journalists to nudge society toward in a more sustainable direction according to Positive Psychology as a Theoretical Foundation For Constructive Journalism.
Solutions Journalism
The Solutions Journalism Network described solutions journalism as “rigorous reporting on responses to social problems.” The Solutions Journalism Network claims that solutions journalism improves accountability by removing excuses for inaction.
Solutions journalism is not about advocacy or pushing a journalist’s agenda, but rather informing readers how communities are handling a particular issue. In The Constructive Role of Journalism, Tanja Aitamurto and Anita Varma explained that solutions journalism is more solutions-driven than victory-driven because it rigorously reports on complexities of the solutions being attempted to address the problem. Solutions stories are not aimed to be a positive, but instead journalists examine an existing solution and the impact of that investigated solution, whether it be positive or negative.
It is assumed that consumers need a balance of both solutions and problem-based news in order to not overwhelm readers with one particular approach. However, Mikhael Simmonds explained that just talking about the bad stuff is disingenuous because it’s only half the story.
Solution journalism encourages journalists to revisit the event or problem by also reporting on the solutions. “What we look for is to institutionalize the practice of solutions journalism in a newsroom in a news organization…you do your investigative reporting,” Liza Gross said in the CivicStory’s Forum. “You do your interviews, you do your breaking news and then you also do your solutions.”
Solutions stories provide the facts and allow the audience to draw their own conclusions. This means that the solution being reported on may not be an effective solution.
Solutions journalism trainers continue to articulate solutions journalism standards because of assumptions associated with name. According to Samantha McCann’s article, Solutions Journalism is Biased! (And Other Myths), the assumptions held among journalists have led some journalists to disregard the approach as positive news or advocacy journalism. McCann stated there are misunderstandings associated with the practice. Solutions journalism pieces are not advocacy, but they are instead investigative stories that look at how a community is solving an issue.
As solutions journalism matures, the solutions journalism training of journalists and journalism educators will be critical in informing journalists what does and does not qualify as solutions journalism.
For example, Kathryn Thier explained that solutions journalism highlights structural changes within a community. A solutions journalism piece should be ongoing and could be implemented by others. Stories that focus on a single event that will never happen again is considered more of a restorative narrative than solutions journalism.
The solution journalism approach is still in its infancy, but there are signs that suggest the practice will be adopted by more news organizations. “I think we need to ask, what is it about solutions journalism that draws audiences,” Thier said. “I think it’s the feeling like change is possible and there are theories that speak to that.”
