https://reasonstobecheerful.world/hooked-on-solutions-journalism/

How I Got Hooked on #Solutions %Journalism
Evidence-driven stories about solutions shed light on what’s possible, helping #readers to overcome feelings of helplessness.

By: Michaela Haas

..." I’m convinced that solutions journalism is also a solution for the trust crisis in journalism. According to the latest comprehensive Digital News Report by the Reuters Institute, only four out of ten news consumers say they trust most news most of the time, and more than a third (36 percent) of news consumers say they avoid the news often or sometimes. News avoiders are more likely to say they are interested in solutions-based journalism.

“Journalism suffered an existential crisis along with its economic crisis, and solutions journalism is a way of responding to that, a way of increasing trust,” Rosenberg says. “People are assuming that trust is a function of accuracy, and we think it’s also a function of people feeling seen and respected by how the media portrays them.”

Studies show that solutions reporting rarely increases click rates but it increases the reading time by 10 to 20 percent, strengthens credibility and boosts reader engagement. Karen McIntyre, professor for multimedia journalism at the Virginia Commonwealth University, discovered that solutions journalism is also an antidote to feeling helpless and hopeless.

What began in Bornstein’s one-bedroom New York apartment a decade ago has now become an international network. SJN has trained more than 47,000 journalists in 160 countries, and curates a searchable database with solutions stories from 1,900 news organizations.

“People want more solutions journalism [with a focus on the climate crisis],” writes Mitali Mukherjee, who co-authored Reuters’ report on climate news use. “And essentially, that means that they’re looking for not just positive stories, but they’re looking for what’s working in a community and what might be replicated in another.”

What I personally appreciate most about this kind of solutions-focused journalism is its impact. I continue to be amazed how the stories change me and the readers."...