What Solutions Journalism Is

Solutions journalism is rigorous, evidence-based reporting on responses to social problems. The narrative is typically a “howdunit” that explores how the results were produced and what can be learned from the effort. 

Solutions stories report on efforts to solve problems — they don’t celebrate those efforts. They are journalistically rigorous, providing evidence for ways the response was effective, and acknowledging what the response was unable to achieve.

 
What makes a solutions story worth writing? There are three ways to gauge the “solutions value” of a story. Of the three, the first one is by far the most common:

• The response is a success. Most solutions journalism stories are chosen because something  works — and there’s evidence to show that.
• It’s coming here. For example, your college is implementing a new approach to student mental health services. A good solutions story would look at another college that adopted that approach years ago and see what about it has worked and what hasn’t. 

• People are talking about it, but the discussion could use some rigor. For example, there’s a lot of hype about programs that help people communicate across lines of political difference. What is the evidence such programs actually lead to sustained depolarization? 

  
  How to teach this: Ask your students what they see more of: stories about successful programs or stories about problems? Then share with them some side-by-side comparisons of stories about prevalent social problems and stories about responses to those problems. Ask them to assess the rigor of both stories in a given pair by evaluating them according to journalistic standards: Do they provide a service to the audience by shedding new light on something, supply clarity and accuracy in explanations, support all assertions with data and other evidence, acknowledge what is and isn’t known, and leave audiences with a heightened understanding?

  
  Tip: You’ll find great examples in the Solutions Story Tracker. Choose shorter examples, and emphasize ones by students and/or those on topics that are of interest to your students.