Impact Stories

Better Government Association [November 2021]: The Robert R. McCormick Foundation and the Better Government Association (BGA), a watchdog organization, together have launched the Illinois Solutions Partnership (https://www.bettergov.org/news/better-government-association-and-mccormick-foundation-form-the-illinois-solutions-partnership/), an ambitious collaboration that aims to address the state’s urgent challenges through investigative and enterprise reporting. The McCormick Foundation will provide $10 million in grants to the effort over the next five years, and BGA will devote reporters and other resources to substantially match McCormick’s commitment over the same time period. In announcing the new partnership, BGA and McCormick described the venture as in-depth investigative journalism combined with reporting focused on potential solutions, saying Illinois residents need both to hold their government accountable and to engage public officials and leaders to improve Illinois and Chicago.

KPRC 2 [November 2021]: Officials in Harris County, Texas, are exploring whether to adopt a model operating in Bexar County, a few hours’ drive away. To help ensure that defendants out on bond don’t commit crimes while awaiting trial, Bexar County offers them support that can include mental health services, addiction treatment and support in job hunting. Harris County officials learned about Bexar County’s approach from a report on KPRC 2. KPRC 2 reported that Bexar County’s program also has attracted interest from Atlanta, New Orleans and Los Angeles, as well as from a number of other counties in Texas.

Daily Yonder [throughout 2021]: The Daily Yonder’s coverage of COVID-19 led to a twofold increase in readership over the past two years, which coincided with the time the publication started doing more solutions journalism on that topic. Besides showing where the pandemic is bad or getting worse, the Daily Yonder’s stories highlighted areas that were doing well or improving. One examined why Maine and Vermont, largely rural states, have high vaccination rates when most rural areas are below the national average.

Global Press Journal [November 2021]: A Global Press Journal story about how a group of farmers helped save the lives of cattle and reduced air pollution in the process led their city to follow their lead. The story, published in April 2021, explained how farmers in the state of Chihuahua, Mexico, figured out that leftover stalks and leaves from their corn crops could feed cattle when drought killed the grass they usually consumed. Selling those leftovers rather than burning them (as farmers in that area usually do), also led to a decrease in air pollution. By November, the head of the city of Cuauhtémoc’s ecology department announced that the city would stop burning leftover corn stalks and leaves, too, crediting the story as one impetus for the policy change.

KUNR [October 2021]: KUNR Public Radio in Nevada, in association with Noticiero Móvil and This Is Reno, won a national 2021 Murrow Award for Excellence in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the small market radio category. KUNR’s win recognized bilingual solutions reporting done by Natalie Van Hoozer (a 2021 Solutions Journalism Network LEDE fellow) about the pandemic and public health. The Murrow Awards are administered by the Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA).

Gambit [October 2021]: Gambit, a New Orleans alternative weekly newspaper, hosted a solutions focused forum with the top three candidates for a local citywide council seat. The event followed a series of housing-focused solutions stories Gambit published earlier in 2021. Like the solutions stories themselves, the forum focused on lessons learned from other responses to housing crises, including one
on post-Hurricane Katrina housing initiatives. “Asking the questions from a solutions-based perspective … changes the way you, and by extension the candidates and public, think about an issue,” said Gambit Editor John Stanton.