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