I’m trying to catch up with recent discussions about ‘solutions journalism’ – here are a few links:
- Nieman Journalism Lab – A new kind of activist journalism
- Another from Nieman – Laura Amico on a new, mainstream solutions journalism
- Ethan Zuckerman on ‘linking news with action’
- Jonathan Stray on ‘journalism for makers’
- Josh Stearns’ ‘flying seminar on solutions journalism’
- David Bornstein in the NYT on ‘why solutions journalism matters too’
- Lots of pieces from Blair Hickman, who’s been one of the main champions of the idea. The starting point is ‘Looking beyond investigative journalism – a case for solutions journalism’ but there’s also a whole page of related posts and a set of slides and another piece – ‘The next iteration of journalism: Shifting from a problem frame to a solutions frame’
A good piece to read all these against is the short entry on Journalism in the ‘New Liberal Arts’ ebook put together by the guys at Snarkmarket.
A couple of key quotes:
Journalism was once defined as “what professional journalists do.” Today, journalism can be re-described as a community’s conversations with itself. The role of the journalist can be re-imagined as facilitating that conversation. Effective journalism will amplify a community’s questions about how well it’s doing and help find answers.
And also…
Journalism becomes the story of how a society optimizes itself. It creates an ever-evolving record of how the society is functioning, so citizens can amplify their successes, improve their inefficiencies, and fix their mistakes. Once thought of as “the first draft of history,” journalism drafts the blueprint for an ever-changing present. It brings together the best information we have to evaluate our choices and adjust our course.
Journalism is described as ‘the art of the now’… Which is, well, revealing and interesting.