Solutions Journalism

Imagine that every day someone sat you down and told you everything that you had done wrong the day before. Every day you would receive a report on your sensational failures and mistakes; no solutions or insights would be offered and any successes or attempts at good deeds would be ignored. Pretty soon, after a few days, a week or perhaps a month, if you are more resilient, you would start to feel despondent, disillusioned and possibly depressed.

Now consider what it would be like if someone else came along and while acknowledging your mistakes, also reports on what you did right and perhaps suggests ways that you could improve. Or maybe you heard about another person’s report which was more positive and it inspired you to try what he/she was doing.

I get pretty depressed reading the news. It seems as if our country, our continent and our world is one disaster after another – that seems to be the main thrust of the media. I know sensationalism sells but is the role of the media not also to educate and to inspire, to inform and to offer solutions? This topic came up while I was in Sweden and I was excited to be told about Solutions Journalism…

Solutions journalism is critical and clear-eyed reporting that investigates and explains credible responses to social problems. - See more at: http://solutionsjournalism.org/about/solutions-journalism-what-it-is-and-what-it-is-not/#sthash.WkyWbBs3.dpuf

In the video link below, Sarika Bansal tells how Bill Gates was inspired by an article he read in the New York Times on how inexpensive it was to treat diarrhea. Gates credits that article for the reason that he now gives $800 million every year to improve the health-care of children who may otherwise have died. Not only was he informed by what he had read, he was also inspired to make a difference.

Reporter’s Diary: Sarika Bansal’s TEDx Talk on Solutions Journalism - See more at: http://solutionsjournalism.org/2013/03/20/reporters-diary-sarika-bansals-tedx-talk-on-solutions-journalism/#sthash.OMkmVMtu.dpuf

There will always be bad news to be reported on, but there are also many positive stories out there. This has been a thread through the past semester, in the courses that I took and the books which I read. We deserve to get both sides of the story.