How To Push Through Your Teething Troubles, Solutions Journalists?
Here are seven ways to take those initial restlessness in your stride. Stick on. It will get better.
I met my mentee newsrooms from the first cohort of the Solutions Journalism Accelerator (SJA) program one last time a few hours a few days ago. As I draft the final report - an evaluation that everyone in the program is supposed to do - a sum up of what worked, what didn’t, what went well, what didn’t; learnings for next times; I’ll admit, I am mush.
One year ago, I was thrilled at the opportunity of working together with these talented, thoughtful, young journalists; today, I am mellow, deeply grateful at how I grew personally and professionally, as a journalist and as a mentor, through our varied exchanges across regions, continents, skill-sets and worldviews!
To survive through my future low days, I am setting aside the inspiration I gathered watching them at work, from their passion for the projects and their perseverance to see those through, their patience and respect for the program and the processes we built, and these, despite all their challenges and busyness.
Creative brainstorming is not only for the initial phase of a project. If you are a SoJo-ist, save your brainstorming tool and its directions for self-evaluation at every stage of the story lifecycle. Helps you steer clear of roadblocks and diversions.
Before getting into the challenges, I’ll take a moment to mention that having an external program, such as the SJA tremendously helped with accountability and follow-through. The empathetic leaders at the European Journalism Centre (EJC), the mentoring support that came with the program, thanks to the system of knowledge sharing at Solutions Journalism Network (SJN), and the routine interactions and open communication helped everyone stay focused and motivated.
Those first days when we started in August 2022 were not easy for any one. I might take the liberty of speaking on behalf of all the grantee newsrooms, individual journalists, and mentors. The grantee newsrooms were mostly new to SoJo, they didn’t like the idea of a mentor (hardly any one does), and I bet each of them (and us) at some point wanted to flee.
Yet a year later, looking at the collective work the first cohort have put out, I have no doubt that the whole system worked very well. This support at the initial phase of adopting solutions journalism was crucial for the newsrooms, and I can only draw a parallel with the nurture and handholding we received as LEDE Fellows from the SJN.
At this point, I am imagining journalism sponsors and program designers getting all excited about bringing SJA to the rest of the world. The Indian journalism scenario can do well with an SJA-India program; if we can design an SJA for the entire Asia Pacific region, I know all the superlative mentors we want to have on board. And some newsrooms too.
The First Hurdles of Adopting Solutions Journalism
I don’t need to look at my notes. I vividly remember each discussion, each frustration, each confusion that we came across those initial days, and several times through the year. There’s such a definite pattern to this process that if anyone is willing to develop an AI mentor to take us through this phase, it’s absolutely possible. The hurdles do not vary much between a freelancer or a staff reporter; and some recur cyclically - every time you start a new project, every six months or two years, depending on how much your brain has been rewired by SoJo. Call these the rites of passage a SoJo-ist has to go through. But first things first!
1. Are you sure you know what solutions journalism is?
There’s no shame in not knowing, (not) admitting so, and getting ready to learn. Guesswork, I’d say, is a crime when it comes to journalism.
Although I can’t really blame anyone. We are smart people. It isn’t enough that our broomsticks fly us, they are even clocked. Further, the term solutions journalism is such a giveaway. So what’s wrong with guessing it?
Everyone thinks they know what solutions journalism is even before attending the orientation trainings. Journalists writing constructive stories think they know it; content marketers who deliver nice-to-know, feel-good, heartwarming stories think they know it. Anyone who knows the meaning of ‘solutions’ thinks they know SoJo. If you are a pro, forgive me for saying this, but you might have faced this too. For us mentors, this guesswork-knowing almost kills us.
Fellowship applications reflect a similar belief. Often their assumption of SoJo takes their potential story pitches in a completely different direction. Take this as a learning, future applicants. Attend a couple of basic solutions journalism trainings before applying.
The Solutions Journalism Network routinely conducts free orientation trainings and so do I. Every month. And all of these are FREE resources.
Information on SJN’s upcoming Solutions Journalism 101 is here. Get on the one-hour webinar, and if you feel inspired to learn more or start practising solutions journalism, hop to one of my #SoJoParties, which are free, virtual workshops where we deal with bite-sized, applicable pieces of SoJo.
If you are new to solutions journalism and are still hunting for your first story, I can’t recommend attending these gatherings enough. Meeting real-life practitioners and listening to their SoJo experiences are bound to fire up those little grey cells and show you new ways of covering the old leads.
2. Identify your story; not your topic.
One major challenge SoJo throws for its beginners is figuring out where the solutions story fits. What happens to all the research - how do we cram everything in one piece? Or call it what part of my bigger story arc can introduce a solutions journalism reportage. This is especially true for newsrooms and independent journalists who think in terms of longforms, and hence, topics.
This is also the phase that you feel; it’s hard to express. There’s this restlessness, that sensation of you being there but not really there. You know the story but you don’t know how to make it SoJo. This is a typical beginner’s problem, and I have seen that doodling and mind mapping often help you find your way out. I don’t have a presentable example at hand right now but I will update this space when I have one. Presentable here is the keyword.
Identifying and then breaking down the issue/theme/topic into manageable heads can give you an arc for a series, which you can then slice up and fit around story angles and publications. For newsrooms, especially those who have greater control over their content, it has worked well to divide and publish a series with an introductory piece, a middle where you point at the problems and the solutions - in as many articles as needed, and conclude with a possible op-ed.
Freelance journalists consistently get commissioned when their potential or pitched stories demonstrate the thinnest slice of a story. A clear-cut what, why, when, how, and who. At this stage, therefore, their challenge is either to weigh and eliminate the ideas that don’t work, or match ideas with publications. Some publications would prefer explainers, some a general overview of the issue, and some more focus on specific solutions to problems.
Remember that one solution or one response to a problem is best covered in one story. If you have multiple solutions for the same problems, you can pitch, and write, multiple stories, or multiple articles in the series.
All of these are actually challenges of slicing your topic into stories, or bigger stories into bite-sized ones. The better you slice, the more stories (and hence, earnings) you have, the more engagement you have, the more readable (or watchable) your stroies become.
Get deeper, pick up that one problem, one area, one angle, one thin slice that you can work within, say 800 to 1500 words, to present a snippet. This way, you might arrive at a point where you identify a subset of the bigger problem - something specific, perhaps spread over a smaller community, might have a simple solution. Further research might lead you to people who are working to plug that problem, creating innovative ways to solve it - and that’s your solutions story. We hope to talk more about this in our upcoming #SoJoParty this October 7, and this will be an ongoing conversation here.
Whether you are a freelancer or on staff, a journalist or an editor or a communications professional, the thought processes involved in isolating the different threads is a necessary skill.
3. Innovate, adapt, make SoJo your own, and then run with it
Meanwhile, you can read this piece by Felix Austen of Perspective Daily or this one. It’s difficult to pick a favourite among all their works - you can check out the whole series HERE - but I was thoroughly impressed at how Felix retained the flavour of their publication, delivered the sound, smell, and feel that their audiences demand in each piece, yet packed in the four pillars in these longforms on technologies that are quite not implemented yet - a major prerequisite in SoJo.
This series is also an example of how they worked around the hurdle we discussed above in point 2. If you read the story in the second link, on green hydrogen, I’ll recommend you go back to the series and explore the two other stories on the same topic reported from Germany and Namibia. This will give you an idea of how you can incorporate the philosophy of telling the whole story and cover a topic over a series of articles when that’s what your heart and your audiences’ demand. But please note you can take this liberty and this risk when you are a small newsroom working independently. Or maybe a very lucky freelancer working with a generous editor. These are the exceptions to the rule, and these are where adaptations and innovations bring us.
Adding very quickly before dispatch: Sharon Bloyd-Peshkin who recently received her accreditation as a SoJo Trainer from SJN taught a college-wide first-semester course to 110 students the SoJo methodology. And these were not even students of journalism. Talk about playing with SoJo! Sharon demonstrates it through her course, Big Chicago, where she introduces her students to Chicago — the city, the people, the organisations and how they all together respond to each others’ requirements. She shared her experience recently at our trainers’ meet and I once again remembered why SoJo gives me all this dopamine rush. If she agrees, maybe someday we will meet her work here.
Trying to say in so many words - do whatever, just tell the whole story. Don’t let a format or a framework hold you back.
4. Understand when to do a solutions story
Just like figuring where your SoJo story fits in the whole content arc, you can also evaluate where it fits in the news cycle. Points 2 and 3 are almost speaking of the same thing with some inevitable nuances. Many journalists, proud and passionate of their vocation, find wrong with SoJo, often misunderstanding it. The mistake might be in how we speak of SoJo or how we orient them.
It is important to understand that SoJo is not an alternative to all forms of traditional journalism. It is another perspective, albeit a strong and constructive perspective, of practising journalism that impacts. And it has a prominent place in the news cycle.
News fatigue and dipping engagement is certainly a reason why newsrooms should consider solutions-oriented coverage. But it is not the only reason. Journalism has a strong society-building, community-building function, and that doesn’t happen unless solutions journalism plays its part. And solutions journalism can work only when the problem has been covered to death; when the community is highly aware of the problem and has been aware of it for some time. How much time? As much as is necessary for them to embrace a solution to the problem.
You don’t have to be a SoJo-ist all the time; Just when it’s beneficial to talk about how people are responding to problems. Or when others are doing great work and your administrators are neglecting their responsibilities. SoJo is a great way to demonstrate to people and to leaders, how problems can be tackled.
Solutions might come from the common people, a group of people, a couple of individuals, a non-governmental organisation, or a government department. In each case, look at what they are doing, if the work is yielding any result, what are the challenges they are facing. It doesn’t matter who the solution comes from; what matters is how stringently we are doing our work. That brings me to the next point.
5. Use this outline to brainstorm, and then at every step of your solutions story’s lifecycle
And I can’t emphasise this enough. This extremely simple tool, which probably has been present in the solutions journalism consciousness from the beginning, and to which fellow trainer Lola García-Ajofrín drew my attention, is a brainstorming tool, is a compass to show if you are on the right SoJo path, is a reckoner that beeps when you miss something and is also your self-evaluation strategy.
In the beginning, this tool can help you identify your story during your restless phase, remember doodling and scribbling? Once you have identified your story, you can populate each segment on the matrix to help you decide which way to go for the four pillars of your story. While you are writing your piece, you can use this tool to structure the story and ensure you are not missing any of the pillars and to evaluate that all of them are strong enough, and finally, right before you publish your story or tag other SoJo-ists on social media, use this tool to self evaluate; to confirm that you indeed have a SoJo story in hand.
I’ll recommend that this tool have a place in the Submit page on the SJN Story Tracker. SJN volunteers who review the multitude of stories to be added to the Tracker might benefit if the author submits this snapshot of the four pillars when they submit a story for the Tracker.
6. Read, read, and read #SoJo stories published in your beat
If you are trying to land your first solutions story, find inspiration from the really good ones. Visit the Solutions Journalism Network’s Story Tracker and run an advanced search. Start browsing the staff picks.
The Tracker is a fully curated database of strong solutions journalism reporting and currently holds close to 16000 stories. It is a teaching-learning tool. It’s mind-boggling to imagine that a human actually reads all the stories submitted for consideration, determines whether the four pillars are present in each of those, and evaluates their strength and validity before adding them to the repository.
Browsing through the Tracker, you can teach yourself how each pillar looks, how the journalists have gathered relevant information for each pillar, and how you can do it too. The stories in the Tracker are categorised under multiple heads and can be searched through different parameters. Read, and be inspired.
7. If you have access to a #SoJo-ist, talk to them. Involve them in your work. Ask for feedback.
Our days are brimming yet many of us give away our time to driven SoJo-ists working through a pitch, a story structure, or simply answering those many questions. SoJo-ists are usually nice, helpful people, and I know you know that too. There’s nothing more we love than seeing a cool solutions story on the Tracker. We sometimes have our downtimes like everyone, but mostly we are ready to help. Feel free to connect with us, drop an email, tag us on social media. If you genuinely want to respect our time and worth, book 30-billed-minutes with any of us to talk about your teething SoJo problems. Billed or not, we will be more than happy to see you through.
What are the other teething troubles you came across on your solutions journalism journey? Let me know in the comments, and let's see how we can tackle those. Also if you are new to SoJo, let me know what’s bugging you the most about this new way.
#SoJoParty Oct 7, 2023: Community Solutions Reporting
The little birdie flew away with the news a while ago. Hope you already got to know. If not, I am so excited to announce that #SoJoParty is getting its second prominent guest, Meera K, this Saturday, October 7, 2023. She is busy as busy can be, so be on time, sharp at 3 pm IST. We have a lot to cover.
Meera is one of the Co-founders of Citizen Matters, an award-winning civic media platform focusing on critical urban issues, ideas and solutions for cities. She is also a Trustee at Oorvani Foundation, a non-profit that connects people who want better cities with civic information, tools, networks and resources they need to make it happen. Meera also helped initiate Open City, an urban data platform. She will share with us her experience of trying solutions journalism at Citizen Matters, and together we will explore how to kick off your first SoJo story.
Meera is also an Ashoka Fellow, recognised for her work building open knowledge platforms that allow citizens to collaborate and improve their cities. I can guarantee that you will have a good time. Registration is FREE:
https://forms.gle/K6MHfoyCBZPR45737
The SoJo-ist is delayed
It is, and I am not surprised. Are you?
In the past four weeks, I have penned seven polar opposite versions of what should reach your inbox. And then shelved them. That’s probably a good thing, this nervousness, and these try-outs, scratching them out, and trying again, anew. I went through these same cycles when I was new to SoJo. I’ll be restless, choose one over another, and come back to the original. Will drink gallons of beverages, only to realise they don’t help. I’ll rather meditate. I am hoping those seven versions will get in shape sometime and appear here.
I don’t want you to read a newsletter for 14 minutes. I know you are busy, don’t have a lot of headspace. Or are you procrastinating? Let me know what might be helpful. I’ll talk about SoJo pain points here while sharing a slice from my world in the most effective way. I am trying to figure that way out. Let me know your thoughts too.
I also predict that The SoJo-ist will waddle on until December and get into a straddle by the second month of 2024. I am hoping I will reach the fortnightly rhythm by then. A lot of it will depend on whether or not I feel encouraged, and you know that. And you also know what you need to do, right?