Solutions Journalism A New Era Numberanalytics Com

Bonisiwe Shabane

-Nov 18, 2025, 8:25 AM

solutions journalism a new era numberanalytics com

Sarah Lee AI generated Llama-4-Maverick-17B-128E-Instruct-FP8 6 min read · May 25, 2025 Solutions Journalism is a rapidly growing field that seeks to reframe the way we consume and interact with news. At its core, Solutions Journalism is about reporting on responses to social problems, rather than just reporting on the problems themselves. Solutions Journalism is built on several key principles, including: Solutions Journalism has its roots in the 1990s, when a growing number of journalists and media outlets began to focus on reporting on solutions to social problems. However, it wasn't until the launch of the Solutions Journalism Network in 2013 that the field began to gain widespread recognition and momentum.

Since then, Solutions Journalism has evolved to become a global movement, with a growing community of practitioners, researchers, and advocates. Solutions Journalism differs from traditional journalism in several key ways. Some of the key characteristics of Solutions Journalism include: Solutions journalism is rigorous and compelling reporting about responses to social problems, which includes these key elements: Founded in 2013 by the award-winning journalists David Bornstein, Tina Rosenberg and Courtney Martin, the Solutions Journalism Network includes: The Solutions Story Tracker® is the largest collection of solutions journalism: 17,200 stories produced by 9,700 journalists and 2,140 news outlets from 98 countries.

The stories cover responses in 199 countries, in 18 languages. This resource is made possible because of a growing movement of journalists who use solutions journalism to illuminate both problems and evidence-based responses to them. The Solutions Journalism Network offers newsletters for journalists, educators and everyone interested in how people are responding to problems. Journalists in our global network use solutions journalism to strengthen community efficacy, challenge false and harmful stereotypes, build trust and civic engagement, depolarize public discourse and build new sources of revenue. Sarah Lee AI generated Llama-4-Maverick-17B-128E-Instruct-FP8 6 min read · May 25, 2025 Photo by Priscilla Du Preez 🇨🇦 on Unsplash

The media landscape is undergoing a significant transformation. As audiences become increasingly disillusioned with the negativity and sensationalism that often characterizes modern journalism, a new approach is gaining traction: Solutions Journalism. This emerging field is redefining the role of journalism in society, focusing on the constructive and impactful stories that drive social change. The demand for solutions-focused storytelling is on the rise. Audiences are craving more than just the latest news; they want to know how problems are being addressed and what they can do to make a difference. According to a study by the Solutions Journalism Network, 74% of respondents believe that news organizations should focus on solutions to problems, not just the problems themselves 1.

Technology has played a crucial role in enabling Solutions Journalism. The rise of digital media has made it easier for journalists to research and tell complex stories in engaging and interactive ways. Social media platforms, in particular, have become essential tools for journalists to disseminate their work and connect with their audiences. Solutions journalism is an approach to news reporting that focuses on the responses to social issues as well as the problems themselves. Solutions stories, anchored in credible evidence, explain how and why responses are working, or not working. The goal of this journalistic approach is to present people with a truer, more complete view of these issues, helping to drive more effective citizenship.

Solutions journalism is rigorous, evidence-based reporting on the responses to social problems. Solutions stories can take many forms, but they share several key characteristics. They identify the root causes of a social problem; prominently highlight a response, or responses, to that problem; present evidence of the impact of that response; and explain how and why the response is... When possible, solutions stories also present an insight that helps people better understand how complex systems work, and how they can be improved. Proponents of solutions journalism distinguish the approach from so-called "good news" reporting, which can be characterized by a superficial presentation of a response without careful analysis or examination of whether the response is effective. Solutions stories assess responses that are working today, as opposed to untested theories—and they tend to place more emphasis on the innovation than on a person or institution responsible for that innovation.

Solutions journalism supporters believe that it provides important feedback that allows society to see credible possibilities and respond more successfully to emerging challenges. Compelling reporting about responses to social problems, they say, can strengthen society by increasing the circulation of knowledge necessary for citizens to engage powerfully with issues in their communities, and for communities, leaders, innovators,... Simply reporting on problems, some research shows, can reduce citizens' sense of efficacy, leading them to disengage from public life. In a 2008 study, the Associated Press found that young people were tired of news, which they perceived as being negative and lacking resolution.[1] This resulted in "news fatigue", in which people tended to... There's a growing body of research on how people respond to stories about solutions. Pictured: Journalists and editors gather for a solutions journalism event hosted by Nigeria Health Watch and the Solutions Journalism Network.

A growing number of people are tuning out the news. The Reuters Institute’s 2025 Digital News Report found that nearly 4 in 10 people globally now say they sometimes or often avoid the news. Many say it puts them in a bad mood. Others feel overwhelmed, powerless or fed up with the repetitive focus on crises and conflict. This trend isn’t new. In 2023, researchers dug deeper and found something surprising: People who avoid the news are not uninterested — they’re frustrated.

They are more likely than regular news followers to say they want solutions-focused stories and less interested in the constant churn of breaking news. In other words, the news isn’t losing its audience because people don’t care; it’s because many feel they’re not getting what they need. Researchers have long warned that relentless negativity in the news leads to emotional burnout. Media scholars Karen McIntyre and Meghan Sobel have identified two major causes of news avoidance: psychophysical numbing, where audiences lose the ability to process large-scale distant suffering, and compassion fatigue, which dulls empathy the... News, especially U.S. media, has a bias toward the negative.

For example, in a study comparing U.S. news coverage of COVID-19 in 2020 with international coverage of the pandemic, economics professor Bruce Sacerdote, along with two other researchers, found that 87% of national U.S. news coverage of COVID was negative, compared with 51% of international news coverage, even when good news, like rising vaccination rates or improved treatments, was available. That imbalance can make people feel that everything is getting worse. Solutions Journalism is rigorous reporting about responses to society’s problems. It is complete journalism that not only spotlights the problems but follows an evidence-based presentation of existing solutions.

Such reporting enhances knowledge and accountability by providing the whole story to readers and offers constructive content in an age of media apathy. This innovative journalism approach goes beyond simple issue identification and instead focuses on featuring what is already working. It uses the same rigor of investigative reporting to highlight the mechanisms and success factors as well as the limitations of already-existing solutions to well-known problems. As a result, it activates citizens by functioning as a catalyst for accountability that can lead to meaningful change. A problem that was seen as unavoidable comes to be seen as unacceptable. Solutions Journalism covers a wide variety of topics and its approach ranges from identifying cases of positive deviants to exploring new ideas in action to reporting on experiments in progress.

The result is informative, impactful content that strengthens audience engagement re-establishes trust in the media, and increases both readership and revenue. The Four Qualities of Solutions Journalism 1) A solutions story focuses on a RESPONSE to a social problem — and how that response has worked or why it hasn’t. (“howdunnit”)2) The best solutions reporting distills the lessons that makes the response relevant and accessible to others. In other words, it offers INSIGHT.3) Solutions journalism looks for EVIDENCE — data or qualitative results that show effectiveness (or lack thereof).4) Discusses LIMITATIONS or gaps of the approach (no response is perfect!) Sarah Lee AI generated Llama-4-Maverick-17B-128E-Instruct-FP8 6 min read · May 26, 2025

Solutions journalism is a reporting approach that focuses on the responses to social problems, rather than just the problems themselves. It aims to provide a more comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the issues by highlighting the people, organizations, and initiatives working to address them. This approach has its roots in the early 2000s, when a group of journalists and media experts began to explore new ways to cover social issues in a more constructive and impactful way. The Solutions Journalism Network (SJN), a non-profit organization founded in 2013, has been instrumental in promoting and supporting the development of solutions journalism. SJN defines solutions journalism as "rigorous and compelling reporting on the responses to social problems" 1. The organization provides training, resources, and networking opportunities for journalists and media outlets to help them adopt this approach.

Solutions journalism is guided by several key principles, including: The benefits of solutions journalism are numerous. By highlighting the responses to social problems, solutions journalism can: There have always been societal issues to cover in the media, from suffering and poverty to war, political corruption and civil rights violations. Journalists have always strived to shine a light on the hidden aspects of society. Although quintessentially needed, the approach of reaching and reporting problems has left the audience traumatized and, worse, helpless.

Solutions journalism is a response to this gap. This form of journalism seeks to provide practical responses to the issues flagged. Solutions-oriented journalism does not dismiss crises; rather, it underscores the need to resolve them while offering readers a reason to be optimistic for change. With a focus on the emerging literature on journalism, solutions journalism can be defined as a paradigm or explanatory theory on how societal institutions and individuals respond to problems regardless of their challenges. Solutions journalism differs from normal reporting, as the latter would most likely just stop at highlighting issues in society. Solutions journalism, on the other hand, studies the responses to problems and evaluates how effective and helpful those responses are towards solving the said problem.

This new form of journalism, however, does not require less effort. Just like any form of news, it mandates extensive research and analysis. Solutions journalism differs, however, in that it seeks to motivate and inspire action rather than report tragedies. • Education: A conventional story on the poor performance of a school may emphasize the large number of students in a class relative to the low level of achievement. On the other hand, solutions journalism would tell the story of why a certain district outperformed others in student achievement due to better teaching and mentoring processes in place. • Climate change: A journalist may only report the increase in global average temperatures and increases in natural catastrophes.

Solutions journalism would report that some cities are managing to reduce the amount of carbon emitted due to certain policies, technologies, or efforts by members of the community. • Innovations in healthcare: Solutions journalism may also look at how some countries or institutions have managed to lower the rate of deaths from maternity by improved access to medical care and better enforced... Solutions journalism is rigorous and compelling reporting about responses to social problems, which includes these key elements: Solutions journalism investigates and explains, in a critical and clear-eyed way, how people try to solve widely shared problems. While journalists usually define news as “what’s gone wrong,” solutions journalism tries to expand that definition: Responses to problems are also newsworthy. By adding rigorous coverage of solutions, journalists can tell the whole story.

Solutions Journalism A New Era Numberanalytics Com

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