EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK: Solutions journalism, what it is and why it’s important

If you follow the news, it will seem like the world that we live in is an increasingly brutal place. The devastating effects of climate change, the rolling back of civil rights, the increasing wealth gap. It’s all too much.

Of course, the news exists to report on the state of the world and how things are going. But too much of it casts everything in a negative light, even if it’s reality.

Solutions journalism aims to shift that dynamic.

Founded a decade ago, the framework takes the tenets of journalism and focuses them on things that are working in society rather than solely focusing on its problems.

Per the solutions journalism website, the idea is to shine a light on “how people are trying to solve problems and what we can learn from their successes or failures.”

Here’s what solutions journalism is not: It’s not hero-worshipping, PR-like content that glosses over the real issues while only focusing on “feel-good” stories. What it is, is a critical approach to examining responses to real-world problems and analyzing their shortcomings while offering them as a potential solution.

In our complicated world, more and more news outlets are turning towards solutions journalism to offer some solace and more nuanced narratives about our communities. And here at TCB, we’re trying our hand at it too. We’ve created a category on our site for all of our solutions journalism stories and we’ll be actively pursuing more.

In the last two weeks, we’ve published two solutions journalism pieces: one about how High Point is tackling reparations and the other about how Winston-Salem’s alternative police response program is going.

Of course, not everything works. But in an era when things seem to be darker than ever, we all need to spend some time focusing on the things that could bring some light into our lives.

Have a solutions journalism tip? Send it to [email protected].