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Basic Toolkit
Systemic responses to entrenched social problems require more than a few extraordinary people; they require armies of ordinary people employing strategic and effective techniques. That’s why solutions journalism is more engaging when stories focus more rich, three-dimensional characters and compelling narrative tension, rather than relying on “heroes.”
How can you keep yourself from slipping into hero worship, even when you find yourself legitimately impressed by someone’s leadership or ingenuity? Here are some tips:
Sophie Fung
SJN, now you sound like my screenwriting lectures, that's just incredible.
Blaize Itodo
This is enlightening, thank you.
Charlie Metcalfe
Useful course. Thank you.
Damon Fairall
Mary is the best. Your comments helped me make it through.
Ahmad-Tijani Agbaje
Absolutely amazing module in general. This has changed my approach to journalism for ever.
Mary Agoyi
Thank you for this entire module, it just gave me a new perspective to storytelling.
Janani Janarthanan
Went through the entire module and I have to say that the examples and the inputs are most instructive and enlightening. Thank you.
peter SHERMAN
Thanks so much. Teaching an environmental photojournalism class ("environment" broadly construed to include social systems) and my students will benefit greatly from this synopsis.
Sallu Kamuskay
Thank you very much. I just finished the training.
"It's not enough to simply find a lone crusader who is working to change a broken system, and to profile him or her—the goal is, when possible, to look more deeply, at systems-level change rather than at singular individuals painted as heroes. That helped me to think about the challenge of reporting on our false narratives around gun violence—it shaped my decision, for instance, not just to profile one spectacular individual fighting to change the narrative around crime survivors, but instead, to profile two groups working side by side to reshape an entire field of survivor narratives and to build something much larger than the sum of their parts. We found our characters within programs that address the needs and worked backwards, identifying hurdles as well as issues/statistics related to the problem."