Impact Stories

The Plain Dealer of Cleveland tackled the problem of childhood lead poisoning in its city with a series of stories that included a solutions-focused look at how other cities were doing a better job of preventing poisoning in the first place. The reporters said the solutions stories were key in sparking change because they showed Cleveland had options it wasn’t pursuing. Most recently, in July 2019, the Cleveland City Council passed a landmark law requiring any property built before 1978 to be certified as lead-free before it can be rented.

James E. Causey, a reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, wrote about a community garden in the city as part of his series “Cultivating a Community.” The solutions story looked at how young boys benefit from growing fruit and vegetables on a small plot of urban land as a means to steer clear of other activities that could ultimately lead to incarceration. Causey said his reporting “turned out bigger than being a piece on a man working on an urban garden and trying to address the needs of the community” and that he “found a lot of love in a community where people believed love didn’t exist.” After the story came out, the organization managing the garden secured its nonprofit status and received $30,000 in funding. It also saw an increase in people looking to mentor and volunteer with the project.

On the verge of financial collapse in 2015, Nice-Matin, a legacy publication in the South of France, decided to develop a new product to warrant the launch of its subscription program: a news section devoted to solutions-oriented reporting. The digital offer, priced at 9,90 euros a month, also provided unique access to events, designed in part to involve the readership in shaping the focus of editorial coverage and to create opportunities for members of the community to meet one another. Over the following one and a half years, the newspaper attracted 7,000 paying subscribers and produced between 10 and 30 solutions-oriented stories every month.