Contents
  1. I. Introduction (30m)
  2. II. Basic Reporting (60m)
  3. III. Basic Storytelling (30m)
Resources

Basic Toolkit

Welcome

If you’re reading this toolkit, it means you are—at the very least—intrigued by solutions journalism and how it might enhance your reporting skills. Great. We believe journalists gain a lot when they look at responses to problems.

A wide variety of compelling stories simply don’t get covered. Why? The field of journalism has traditionally been resistant to seeing responses as legitimate fodder for investigation. Some reporters and editors fear it will be perceived as advocacy, fluff, or PR. Here at the Solutions Journalism Network (SJN), our mission is to change that perception. We define solutions journalism as rigorous, compelling coverage of responses to social problems—reporting done with the highest of journalistic standards.

We’re already working with a network of over 170 newsrooms and thousands of individual journalists to demonstrate that solid solutions journalism need not be feared. To the contrary, it’s an important, underused tool in a reporter’s pocket.

SJN was co-founded by David Bornstein and Tina Rosenberg, veteran reporters who write the “Fixes” column at The New York Times, and Courtney E. Martin, a journalist and author who got her start just as online media was exploding. The three of them had unique journeys—through the farmlands of India, the hospitals of Brazil, and the Ninth Ward of New Orleans—that led them all to the same conclusion: there wasn’t enough healthy competition among journalists for great stories about responses to social problems in the world.

The old thinking: we might compromise our professionalism by covering solutions. The new thinking: we compromise our professionalism by not covering solutions. As journalists, our job is to hold up an accurate mirror to society. If we fail to cover the many ways people and institutions are trying to solve problems—successful or not—we fail to do our jobs. If we only cover the systemic problems in schools, for instance, and ignore the models that are working to improve education, we are not telling the whole story.

Many of us became journalists because we want to have an impact, to make the world better. But uncovering wrongdoing isn’t the only way to have an impact. Revealing problems is crucial, of course—but that impact is magnified if alongside the problems, we report on how people are solving them. Education reporters, for example, produce hard-hitting stories about how public schools are failing poor children. They'd have more impact if they also reported on how some schools are educating all their students, and how they are achieving this. These kinds of stories energize readers, listeners and viewers. They change the public debate. And they change policies.

People don't change merely because someone points out their problems. We need to know that change is possible and see models of how to do it. Societies work the same way.

This Solutions Journalism Learning Lab is designed for anyone who wants to practice solutions journalism. We hope you will find value in these pages, whether you’re a veteran print journalist looking to reinvigorate your approach, a mid-career videographer looking to reconnect to your original reasons for becoming a journalist, a journalism student looking to define your career, or anything in between.

The Learning Lab walks users through the practice of solutions journalism from the first step, which is to identify a response worth investigating, to the last: engaging readers in your piece once it is published. But you need not navigate this resource from start to finish like a traditional book. You can pick the sections that are most useful to you. 

We distill the structures of a few solutions journalism stories, to aid you in times of writer’s block. And throughout the Toolkit, you’ll find videos and interactive exercises that bring the solutions approach to life; links to case studies and model stories from our Solutions Story Tracker; and connections to other resources on our site and elsewhere. Plus, we’ve created special guides for beat reporters focused on health, education, and violence issues.

We see this as a working document and hope that you will talk back. Please give us feedback, whether by emailing, tweeting, or skywriting. We welcome all advice that helps us improve on this resource and makes it more useful to the growing network of people practicing solutions journalism.

We look forward to hearing from you soon!

The content in this toolkit is free to repurpose. All SJN Learning Lab content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) license. See our Terms & Conditions of Use.

16 Comments

  • Sophie Fung

    Solution journalism is the only paradigm that offers us the ins and outs of an issue at hand. Merci à alumna journaliste Sophie Roland pour la recommandation, où sont les francophones ? N'hésitez pas à me contacter !

  • Barney Lerten

    There is an old, barely used Solutions Journalism subreddit on Reddit - is there any chance it could be a great forum to interact with journalists and the public?

  • TCHITEYA KEN PHINEAS

    Interessant, heureux de découvrir ce guide

  • Avery Lupkes

    What up from Emporia State University

  • BOLA Bakary

    Merci pour la mise à disposition de cette ressource.

  • Mary Agoyi

    Thank you for this great opening. Makes me want to see all SJN wants to offer...

  • Phebean Ibizugbe

    Though I will be applying the Solutions Journalism knowledge from this training in an area not common to the Solutions Journalism Network focus, Business Growth and Development (especially for Small and Medium sized Enterprises in Nigeria), it is an opportunity that I appreciate and applaud. The approach of focusing on Solutions in Reporting or Storytelling is truly a rare skill birthed through a rigorous process.

  • Ibrahim Babangida Surajo

    Thank you for giving us this medium to learn more about Solution Journalism.

  • Ify Yusuf

    I am interested in applying the knowledge I gain from the course in my career.

  • Lourdes Perez Ramirez

    Gracias por proveer un importante ángulo en la discusión acerca de este estilo periodístico, el cual, para muchos, viola el principio de objetividad, pero para los periodistas como esta servidora, una empresaria social que publica un medio para el cambio social (reducción de la pobreza en la mujer hispanohablante, el periodismo de soluciones va a la par con nuestro contenido y nuestra misión de contribuir a reducir la pobreza en las mujeres hispanohablentes de Estados Unidos en particular, el estado de Florida. Mientras más cursos y lecturas hagamos acerca de este tema, mejores periodistas objetivos con sentido humano seremos. GRACIAS.

  • Joshua Arguello

    Muchisimas gracias.

  • Joshua Arguello

    Muchisimas gracias.

  • Jovani Escobar Gil

    Encontrarse con una guía como esta cuando apenas se inicia en el ejercicio es de gran ayuda. Dispuesto a aprender. Gracias.

  • Jeremías Aspen

    Gracias.

  • josé vicente dorado

    Me alegra muchísimo que pongáis a nuestra disposición una herramienta tan interesante en español. Tuve la suerte de conocer a Tina Rosenberg en el taller que impartió el año pasado en Medellín, en el Festival GABO, en el que tuve la suerte de ser admitido. Espero crecer como profesional con vuestra ayuda y las aportaciones de la comunidad. Saludos desde Madrid, España.

  • Erin Bryant

    Thank you for your work and this website! We are thinking about your concept and example this fall as we teach ocean conservation and management at Sea Education Association, the home of SEA Semester college study abroad programs studying the ocean environment, in Woods Hole Massachusetts. Clear, compelling communication of solutions can take us far in the direction of good marine policy!

Resources

"This isn’t service journalism in the traditional sense; it is rigorous and investigative journalism at its core."

Paul Edwards
Former EIC of the Deseret News
Introduction

How do I know it's Solutions Journalism?