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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 1, 2017)
Page 10 News Street Roots • Dec 1 -7, 2017 Journalism that restores power to the people happened? Are we talking about a charismatic principal? Or are we talking about specific things, like changing the teaching approach or the culture of the school? They did many things, and there were many obstacles. There are all these details. When you’re asking sources about these questions, they realize that you’re genuinely curious about the process. BY A M A N D A WALDROUPE S T A F F W R IT E R ar crashes. Robberies. Drug busts. Fires. A murder. C These are topics of stories you might watch during the evening news, and it’s enough to make you think the world is falling apart. “If it bleeds, it leads” was the mantra to describe the derogatory attitude of what is, and is not, covered by journalism. This tends to be stories about societal or government dysfunction, corruption, problems. But what about the solutions to those problems? Will we ever feel optimistic about our news again? David Bornstein is the CE O and co-founder of the Solutions Journalism Network. H e’s also co-author of the New York Times’ weekly “Fixes” column, which highlights a solution to a social problem each week. Solutions journalism tells rigorously reported stories about solutions to social problems. It also analyzes any known impacts - how many people are affected, at what cost, are there any unintended consequences, can such a solution can be replicated in other communities, and so on. You could say that solutions journalism is good news, with proof to back it up. And there’s an entire network of journalists and educators that advocate for this approach. The Solutions Journalism Network, founded in 2013, trains journalists to report solutions-oriented stories and supports newsrooms, freelancers and university journalism programs that do so. In November, I was among more than 80 journalists and educators to attend the Solutions Journalism Network’s first summit in Provo, Utah. While there, I spoke with Bornstein about solutions journalism and its potential to combat the negativity and cynicism that has become prevalent in our society. A.W.: A n d readers see how they can do that very sam e thing. New York Times columnist David Bornstein is co-founder o f the Solutions Journalism Network, which advocates for stories that don’t just reveal problems but show how they can be solved and one o f the m ain ways that people received D.B.: I think “advocacy journalism” is an information. B u t now that the internet exists, oxymoron. I don’t think there is such a there is this problem o f where to look. thing. There is advocacy and there is journalism. They are completely different. D.B.: There’s too much. Journalists shouldn’t be advocating because A.W.: A n d the proliferation o f information that defeats the whole purpose of presents a different problem journalism. of how we distinguish The difference is between good information humility. Our knowledge of versus bad information. something at any point in time is inadequate. You’re D .B .: That’s the crucial The Solution Journalism doing the best you can with role news organizations the knowledge you have. | should play. Let’s say your Anyone who advocates for a community has a problem, particular approach to a as many do, with high problem assumes way too school drop outs. There are much information. That’s thousands of schools their job. No one is pro lead around the country. In paint. The humility in | order to find the 2 percent covering these things, from of smartest schools that we soWonsjoumalism.org what we see today, this should be learning from, approach seems to be you have to find those To read a selection of getting these results. That’s schools, vet them to see if Amanda Waldroupe: H ow do you define Street Roots’ solutions as far as you go. 1 their success is real and not solutions jo u rn a lism ? reporting, visit a made-up story, look and A.W.: I wonder whether David Bornstein: It’s rigorous reporting see how they did it, then information about solutions solutionsjoumalism about responses to social problems, the | take that information and is something that Am ericans results they’re getting and trying to turn it into stories that are would have gotten somewhere understand, if they are getting better accessible and make them else, from another institution results, how they’re getting that. At its best, locally relevant. That’s a really interesting perhaps, a couple decades ago, or however long it should be showing people in communities job. The journalist becomes this interpreter, back. what their options are to try to address in a way, of information out in the world for problems without advocating for one D.B.: It’s really hard for people to hear your community, about how we make these particular approach. People should know about what’s going on on a regular basis. stories meaningful. what their options are. Then there’s the general community A.W.: You write quite a bit fo r the “F ix e s” Oftentimes, people are far more aware of feedback system that we call the news. colum n. When you work on the stories y o u ’re the problems that they have and far more When it comes to issues that are affecting writing about, what’s the reaction you get from outraged. The thing that’s missing is not our community, we should be on a regular yo u r sources, who otherwise m ight be added outrage. If you add outrage to basis getting information that helps us interviewed fo r stories that are more negative? outrage, you get fatalism, and people tune understand how we can have more power out, burn out. At a certain point, when against those problems. Our civic leaders or D.B.: What makes a story interesting is people are aware of a problem and they care whoever will decide which of these things that these are problem-solving narratives. and they sense there’s urgency, what’s makes sense and go forward with. But they You could think of them as quest narratives: missing is “what do we do?” Individuals need the inputs to field those debates. How do we solve the case of the drop-outs? can’t go around the country and gather It’s a detective story. This school had a drop A.W.: In the pre-Internet era, when p rin t ideas. But news organizations can. out rate of 50 percent. And now it has a A.W.: There are some who are skeptical o f solutions journalism and say that it is, essentially, advocacy journalism . READ ABOUT journalism was still the predom inant way that people read the news, reading the newspaper was very much part o f a person’s daily routine, drop-out rate of 12 percent. Let’s say that’s a true statistic. The question is, how? What D .B .: The details are crucial. And if you look at all these T V shows that people are addicted to - “C S I,” “House” - there are so many forensic details. They have beautiful people looking at microscopes. It’s always Hollywood-ized. But basically, people are doing hard things that are really meaningful in this winding road of struggle, with setbacks and interesting insights and false assumptions and then discovering something they had never thought of and trying it out and getting the result that they hoped for or something close to it, then saying, “Let’s try this in two places instead of one.” It’s how the human race has evolved from living 40-year life spans to 80-year life spans. A.W.: I would im agine solutions journalism offers some hope to readers, which is som ething that Am ericans sorely need right now. We have a president who is constantly saying that things aren’t working. That’s a dark message to hear. D .B .: We have a press that has been saying that for 40 years, long before our president came along. If you do a sentiment analysis on journalism looking at the negativity and the tone of journalism, it took a downward turn in the early 1970s. Essentially, because of Vietnam and the Watergate scandal. Journalists had been too deferential to power, and you had a shift to “we’re no longer going to go easy on these guys,” and journalism turned into “all we’re going to do is point out the spin and look behind the curtain.” You had this extremely cynical tone that entered journalism, which has been hitting people with a stream of dysfunction and cynicism for 40 years. A.W.: The Watergate scandal an d the Vietnam War also fueled investigative journalism . D o you think that jo u rn a lism can still perform its watchdog role - o f holding public officials an d institutions to account - but without the cynicism ? D .B .: Cynicism is not helpful. Skepticism is really helpful. Journalists should absolutely have to be skeptical. But people started criticizing everything. That was an overcorrection for what had been too much deference to officialdom before that. The pendulum swung, and now it has to be swung back a little. It doesn’t mean we’re going to give up and soften the news. No. That is not the answer. We don’t want to soften news. We want to balance out the traditional watchdog role, which shows people the things they should be concerned, perhaps outraged, about with the new See SOLUTIONS, page 13
