About The Sojo-ist
The Sojo-ist is where it all comes together. The trainings and workshops, nuggets of wisdom from solutions journalism practitioners from around the world, the various events I conduct individually or in collaboration with others, the stories we publish from around the world, the stories that we struggle to publish, the works that my mentees continue to do amidst everything else - all in some way or the other centered around solutions journalism, social and climate justice, and things that bother us.
The intention here is to make it easy for all of us to make that start. Most established journalists struggle with making that start - identifying the stories that can be counted as SOJo stories. If you are not fixated on solutions journalism, telling the whole story with emphasis on a rigorous, evidence-based approach is necessary to make an impact. These are what we will practice here.
This way, we will walk towards our common dreams - of becoming better writers, communicators and journalists; responsible citizens of our democracies and our planet.
The first step to anything is to know, to understand. Inspired action- that’s step two. The SoJo-ist intends to get you until here and a little farther; until you find a strong diveboard, get ready to take the plunge, and swim on.
Who am I!
I am Swati, an independent journalist in India. I am also an accredited solutions journalism trainer, an alumni of the LEDE Fellowship from the Solutions Journalism Network. I run a YouTube channel, Earth Solutions Network, to present simplified climate information and solution stories. As a journalism mentor, I conduct workshops for students and professionals around the world, mentor journalists in producing solutions oriented reporting.
I returned to journalism around 2014-2015, after spending a little over ten years in the elearning industry, designing instructions and curriculums for software companies, and teaching comunication skills to adult students in cities closer to the Arctic. At the time, I had barely heard about constructive journalism but I knew one simple thing: that I am not getting into the beat-pushing, back-bending, breaking-news-vending kind of journalism ever again. Instead I'll write stories that inspire. Stories that bring happy changes, stories that push people out of their zones and make them start doing cool things, like terrace farming or drawing zen patterns on coaster sized papers.
I was discovering my groove. I was happy writing for The Hindu, The Guardian, Women’s eNews, Mint, Teen Vogue and The Caravan, The New Indian Express and Al Jazeera among others. I wrote articles I wanted to read, about things i felt drawn to and curious about, like who are the people living on Indian streets, how the rockets whoosh into the blue sky, or why people decide to smudge out floodplains of rivers to build castles on the clouds, and what the people on the floodplains did to survive when rulers decide to build castles on clouds seven, eight and none. But the biggest miracle, you know what was - that readers most often wrote back. That I’ll actually set aside a couple of hours to interact with them over email.
In some time, however, these readers disappeared. I continued to write on social justice and environment and development issues - my arms ached and forehead burnt, i was angered by the injustices, the negligence. But nobody else seemed to be bothered. Researches said there was a news fatigue. Readership was declining.
I was feeling the need to reach out to my own audience, on my own, however small, and however young. In fact, younger the better. I was considering going on YouTube, but I always hid behind the crowd in front of the camera.
And then the Covid hit. And I had to go for a sabbatical. It had become very difficult to witness people falling sick on the melting tars of south Indian streets.
I have almost always been an independent journalist. I loved the freedom. After two years of the pandemic, i was looking to get back to serious work and also to do it better; to level up. The good people at the Solutions Journalism Network had heard about my idea of going on video; they offered me a spot on their LEDE Fellowship army. This opportunity literally took me to the many borders and territories of journalism, in my own country and outside of it, that was out of reach for me until now despite an international career all along. I learnt that you don’t need to scream to get attention, that there’s dignity in keeping calm and listening deeply, that there’s strength in demonstrating responses to problems, that evidence is not enough - you also need to highlight limitations of those responses - why and how they fail, that there’s power in connecting with others, in working together in a collaboration.
During the LEDE Fellowship, as I trained journalists in SoJo and reached out to the ones working from the remotest parts of India, I understood what ‘a passion for journalism’ meant. I came across stringers who have lost jobs and started…
The SoJo-ist was born sometimes this week, but the seed for it was sown when I was training and interacting with regional, micro-local journalists from around Indian and Afrcican soils. And I was exploring ways to take solutions jorunalism to them, enable them to report on stories from their neighbourhoods for national and international publications. With their full credit and a paycheck.
So that’s the dream.
The ends haven’t met. I am working towards it. Each week, I speak for hours with strangers of all kinds - experts and practitioners, journalists - professionals and students, leaders and innovators - to lay pathways, to explore pathways. The Sojo-ist, I hope will enable and empower the true journalists today to transform our communities, our systems, one solutions story at a time. And I would have a small role in showing them the way, and helping them rule it.
I hope I will get your support all through.
