Solutions Journalism Network

Our mission is to spread the practice of solutions journalism: rigorous reporting on responses to social problems. We seek to rebalance the news, so that every day people are exposed to stories that help them understand problems and challenges, and stories that show potential ways to respond.

Even hard-nosed investigative reporters agree that the news provides an excessively dismal view of the world. Audiences regularly come away from the news — even high quality news — feeling powerless, anxious, and resentful. When the daily news product makes people want to tune out and disengage, it doesn’t bode well for the news business — or for democracy.

We believe that journalism can do better. It can provide a view of the world that’s faithful to reality. It can strengthen engagement with audiences and rebuild trust. And it can sustain itself financially. However, it needs a major disruption — not just around better platforms or packaging, but around the news product itself.

Solutions journalism heightens accountability by reporting on where and how people are doing better against a problem — removing excuses and setting a bar for what citizens should expect from institutions or governments. It offers a more comprehensive and representative view of the world. And it circulates timely knowledge to help society self-correct, spotlighting adaptive responses that people and communities can learn from.

We help reporters, producers, and editors bring the same attention and rigor to stories about responses to problems as they do to the problems themselves. Doing so, we believe, can elevate public discourse, spur citizen agency, and reduce polarization. It can strengthen democracy. When added to the mix, it improves the overall quality and impact of journalism.

WHAT WE DO:

• Train journalists to cover the whole story — what’s wrong and the responses to those problems
• Support solutions reporting projects that move the needle in communities around the world
• Bring journalists together to learn, share, and collaborate — helping the solutions approach to spread faster
• Catalyze activities that connect solutions reporting to constructive, de-polarizing public conversations
• Get high-quality solutions stories to the people and institutions who need them to make change