Impact Stories

In 2022, One World Media, a nonprofit that encourages and celebrates better media coverage from the Global South, centered solutions journalism at the heart of its training program for filmmakers who would later attend its 2023 Global Short Docs Forum. The forum, which brought together 16 participants, emphasized “solutions oriented stories about people who are responding to complex problems with empathy and imagination.” One World Media’s annual impact report states it is “filling a gap worldwide” because the solutions-framed editorial approach “has been popular primarily in print and multimedia but not as much in documentary film.” The nonprofit also introduced the Women’s Solutions Reporting Award in 2022.

Radio Rahma, a local station in coastal Kenya broadcasting in Swahili that took part in SJN’s Africa Initiative, reported on a training program that was started at the Mvita sub-county level to fight crime. The success of the program, which teaches technical skills to young people in need of opportunities, and the broad distribution of the solutions-focused story about it, spurred demand throughout Mombasa County. As a result, the county government resolved to roll out the job skills program countywide. Neighboring counties, including Kwale and Kilifi, have now sent delegations to learn more about the project with a view to initiating it in their counties.

J.D. Allen, who produces the solutions-focused climate change podcast “Higher Ground”, received an Eric and Wendy Schmidt Excellence in Science Communications Award from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. Allen produces his show for WSHU, a licensee of Sacred Heart University, and an NPR member station that serves Connecticut and Long Island. The award, in the Best Science Reporting on the Local/Regional Level category, was for the first season of the show. Allen is a lecturer at Stony Brook University School of Communication and Journalism (SoCJ) and serves as managing editor at the radio station. The station collaborates with SoCJ, which is a Solutions Journalism Hub. Laura Lindenfeld, SoCJ dean and executive director of the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science, said, “J.D.’s hard work to shed light on Long Island communities’ efforts to mitigate the impact of climate change helps demonstrate the importance of effective science communication and solutions-oriented storytelling in this struggle.”

The Arizona Daily Star was awarded the Arizona Newspapers Association’s community service/journalistic achievement award for its ongoing project “Serving Tucson With Solutions Coverage.” The beat, led by journalist Caitlin Schmidt, is dedicated to solutions reporting and has focused on engaging the community by gathering input on topics of coverage. Schmidt said, “Solutions reporting aims to shine a light on people trying to make our community a better place, and that’s something we could all use a little more of right about now.”

Enlace Latino NC, a Spanish-language publication in North Carolina, and Southerly, a now-defunct publication reporting on environmental issues in the South, jointly covered the convergence of economic mobility and environmental issues in rural Latinx and immigrant communities in North Carolina. Their 2021 work and collaboration, funded in part by SJN, was recognized with the award for Collaboration of the Year in the small revenue category from LION (Local Independent Online News) Publishers. Judges said: “This partnership is an excellent example of how deep trust between collaborators and a shared desire to serve a community can result in real impact. Beyond its immediate impact, the collaboration also led an outlet [Enlace Latino NC] to start practicing solutions journalism, which is a huge win.”

Inspired by a Boston Globe article (https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/03/24/opinion/take-this-cash-call-me-morning/) about how a small amount of money can be as important as medicine in treating patients, the TV series “New Amsterdam” featured that idea in an episode (https://www.nbc.com/nbc-insider/are-money-atm-prescriptions-real-new-amsterdam), one of the first times — if not the first — that a solutions story from SJN’s Solutions Story Tracker was used as the basis for a TV show.