Solutions Journalism- Unpacking Poverty in Philadelphia
Solutions journalism is a means to be able to offer various approaches to tackling the topic of poverty and its subgroups. Solutions journalism takes the time to unpack these complex community challenges and understanding how current communities are trying to overcome food deserts, education, and what poverty looks like in that community. In the Philadelphia region, it is significantly lacking the articles from a solutions journalism stand point. Philadelphia can be seen as a silo city, however within each neighborhood it has similar challenges with different people creating similar programming to overcome community challenges.
Let’s Talk Poverty provides the data reflect what people think are very important problems that are being faced in Philadelphia. Hunger-fighter determined to share story a story about a strong Philadelphian woman that continues to triumph over adversity. It was a great read to see firsthand the challenges that families face in Philadelphia. A Solution for poverty must come from within was great to understand how the government, civil rights movement, and programming was done in the past and possibly could work in the future. All great works to lead up to actual solutions journalism about Philadelphia.
Unpacking the challenges and also practices of a community can bring up current and past struggles for community members. This process of solutions journalism in Philadelphia would have to be calculated, compassionate and thoughtful. Philadelphia needs to be covered from various aspects and perspectives. Let’s Talk Poverty has communities discussing the challenges Philadelphia faces. Using that data will help to identify in different neighborhoods what programming is being done by the community, nonprofits and the local government. Framing a solutions journalism assignment would begin in one neighborhood and investigating what programming is being done on the topics that Let’s Talk Poverty addresses, and identifying what is working, not working, and where to go from here. This would a be series of each neighborhood done throughout Philadelphia with a final story to summarize the neighborhood findings, practices, and challenges. The audience is a very important aspect that needs to be thought about throughout. By going to each neighborhood per story verse doing a generalized overall story of Philadelphia will give audiences something to connect to and be able to take action. It is a challenging and long process, but so are the topics solutions journalism aims to address.
