Impact Stories

Charles Ellison, host of “ecoWURD” on WURD Radio in Philadelphia, was awarded an Emerson Collective Fellowship. As an Emerson fellow, Ellison will expand ecoWURD, the first initiative from a Black-owned media outlet dedicated to the coverage of environmental and climate issues. In the process, he will elevate the voices of Black people and communities who can play a critical leadership role in climate response, but whose voices seem largely absent from those conversations. Ellison was a participant in SJN’s 2022 Business & Sustainability Initiative.

In December 2022, the Rwanda Dispatch published a story highlighting how farmers use mobile phones to detect and report the symptoms of Rift Valley Fever, which helps contain outbreaks and allows farmers to get assistance fast enough to save livestock and avoid economic ruin. According to John Mugisha, the journalist, the vice mayor of Gatsibo district changed a budget policy in response to the article to increase information officers’ capacity to share updates with communities about the transmission of diseases among animals to people. This strengthened the authorities’ role in communicating about public health matters.

A story about how student achievement went up after a San Francisco school opened a homeless shelter in its gymnasium led to extended hours, with help from volunteers, and plans are underway to create a second shelter in another San Francisco school. The reporter, Gail Cornwall, also heard from a parent determined to start a similar program in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The article won first place in the Features/Small Newsroom category of the Education Writers’ Association 2022 Awards and a 2022 John Swett Award for Media Excellence from the California Teachers Association.

Throughout 2022, Mongabay, a nonprofit environmental news platform, published a range of solutions stories on the issue of conservation that, on average, garnered 91% more page views than its problem-focused stories. Readers spent 11% more time reading the solutions stories, and their internal “engagement score” was higher by 23%.

The Thomson Reuters Foundation now regularly includes solutions journalism modules in its courses designed for reporters and for NGO chief sustainability officers interested in improving their media skills. Corinne Podger, a trainer for the foundation, said, “We have found that a solutions journalism module helps NGOs improve their understanding of the rigor that journalists need, and helps journalists use NGOs more effectively to inform reporting.”

The solutions journalism-focused Fort Wayne Media Collaborative in Indiana published a solutions story by Dave Gong about the Fort Wayne-based Just Neighbors program, which places advocates in courtrooms before judges who hear eviction cases. The advocates help tenants who are close to eviction navigate the complex legal system that governs tenant-landlord relations. The story was shared just days later by both the court executive for the Allen County Courts and the executive director of the Fort Wayne Housing Authority.