Impact Stories

Philip Ngumu’s story on a telemedicine initiative in Makueni County was broadcast on the County FM’s affiliate station, one of the most listened-to stations in Eastern Kenya. After hearing it, Dr. Paul Musila, the County Executive Committee (CEC) member for health, told Ngumu the story helped his department better understand the telemedicine program’s impact and challenges. Crucially, it revealed weaknesses the county hadn't learned from its usual sources. Musila said the county is committed to training new doctors and nurses for the program and modifying services for remote areas — needs revealed by Ngumu’s story. Moreover, delegates from neighboring counties, Kitui and Machakos, heard about the program from County FM and Ngumu at a regional meeting, and plan to launch their own telemedicine initiatives to improve rural health care access. Daniel Otunge of Science Africa said that solutions journalism made an impact because the story showed “evidence that the response was working and benefiting real people.” He added: “Doctors and nurses faced tech challenges due to aging equipment and poor phone connectivity in some remote areas. These limitations triggered an immediate policy response from the government.”

LiCAS News, the Archdiocese of Bangkok’s English-language news outlet, where Peter Monthienvichienchai, Ph.D. serves as editorial director, has adopted solutions journalism to break down the distance between reporters and subjects. Monthienvichienchai learned about the solutions journalism approach from a 2021 journalism workshop hosted by SIGNIS, the World Catholic Association for Communication, and led by accredited trainer Kavita Chandran. LiCAS' practice was reinforced through the Catholic Media Conference in Baltimore in 2023, which had a session on faith-based solutions journalism. At the 2024 National Catholic Social Communications Convention in the Philippines, Monthienvichienchai, serving as the secretary general of SIGNIS, called for improved “communion” with people through genuine human connection. He identified solutions journalism as an important storytelling tool to meet this goal. Monthienvichienchai says solutions journalism “allows us to tell stories of sacrifice and dedication by missionaries around Asia without ‘preaching’ or writing PR releases.” He adds, “Most importantly, it makes the story useful beyond Catholic readership.” LiCAS News is featured in the Solutions Story Tracker, and distributes solutions reporting through its Spotlight series.

Ethan Brown, founder and host of the award-winning climate comedy podcast “The Sweaty Penguin,” has been hired as the journalism program consultant at the University of Rhode Island’s Metcalf Institute. Ethan says: “My motivation to join Metcalf came in part from my experience co-facilitating the Train-the-Trainers sessions through SJN’s Climate Cohort in April 2024, and subsequently training The Deerfield Scroll on SoJo. I really enjoyed being able to have a larger impact than just my own work, helping other journalists cover climate solutions.” At Metcalf, he is leading the new Climate and Environmental Science Fellowship for Local Journalism, which includes a training in science-supported solutions journalism, drawing on insights he learned as a solutions journalism writer and SJN trainer.

Twenty journalists in Peru came together to form the Peruvian Solutions Journalism Network for Integrity (Red de Periodismo de Soluciones para la Integridad), with an initial focus on promoting investigations and debate on public contracts, which are regularly subject to corruption and other inefficiencies. The network’s first contribution was the publication of articles by its founding members, covering subjects such as citizen-led monitoring of progress of public works. The impulse for the creation of this new group came from Wilber Huacasi, a journalist at La República (a major legacy paper in Lima), who initially organized a countrywide online training that for approximately 60 Peruvian journalists, with the financial support of USAID, Peruvian foundation Gustavo Mohme Llona and the Jesuit university in Lima.

As part of her work as a 2024 HEAL Fellow, Morgan Watkins helped prompt critical discussions about deploying solutions journalism within her newsroom, Louisville Public Media (LPM). These discussions led to a new editorial plan launched in summer 2024, which has begun to be implemented. Watkins says: “Our newsroom has made a decision to focus the vast majority of our stories on three principles: solutions, accountability and community-generated story ideas. We’ve heard from our community that they want to know what others are doing — and what they can do — to address the challenges we face. We decided to be more intentional about solutions journalism, because we want to better serve our community. Our aim is to continue our work toward becoming a trusted source of local news for more people in our community by diversifying our offerings and by serving more residents of our community who have been traditionally sidelined in the media.” LPM has produced more than 10 solutions-centered stories since launching its new strategy.

As a result of a solutions journalism story about a program that teaches new parents and family members to handle issues such as domestic violence, neglect and drug use, the program received support from community leaders and saw an increase in attendance by people who had read the piece. The Rev. Kennedy Jacobs, who leads the African American Family Institute and runs sessions in three local churches, praised the benefits of the article, titled “Parent Cafe program gives residents guidance, chance to connect.” The piece was written by Jasmine Hall, a student in mass communications at Bethune-Cookman University, which participated in the Solutions Journalism HBCU Educator/Black Press Academy program, coordinated by SJN.