Impact Stories

Trust built and distributed through a ‘Solutionsphere’
Inspired by her Solutions Journalism Network (SJN) training, Duygu Uzunoglu, an accredited solutions journalism trainer in Turkey, spearheaded Solutionsphere, a mentorship program initiated through NewsLabTurkey. The 18-month initiative offers comprehensive workshops and mentorship in solutions and investigative journalism, partnering with six diverse media organizations (Seferi Keçi, Kısa Dalga, Muzır Neşriyat, Bursa Tanık, Evrensel, and Mesele Ekonomi). For many of these media partners, Solutionsphere represents an empowering introduction to solutions journalism, providing journalists with practical skills and renewed motivation in Turkey’s challenging media landscape. This collaboration highlights how institutional support and international training opportunities can foster meaningful journalistic impact and innovation. According to Uzunoglu, the news organizations find that “solutions journalism feels like a small but meaningful spark of hope and agency” in a country that has many challenges for journalists.

The Climate School initiative, in collaboration with Greenpeace, has launched the Climate School Award for Arab Climate Journalism. This is the first regional award in the Middle East and North Africa dedicated to climate journalism, which has a goal of recognizing journalism in the Arabic language that addresses climate change in the region. The award includes a category for “Best Climate Solutions Report,” and winners will be announced in May 2025. Co-founder Rahma Diaa says: “We ensured that the award included a dedicated category for solutions journalism to encourage journalists to produce more climate solutions reports. Audience surveys have confirmed the public’s preference for solutions journalism, particularly when discussing the climate crisis […] Solutions journalism plays an effective role in raising climate awareness in communities, helping the public understand climate solutions, assess their effectiveness, and inspire them to innovate more solutions to address the climate crisis.” Diaa is an accredited solutions journalism trainer who has presented on climate solutions journalism through the Climate Journalism Diploma, organized by the Climate School in collaboration with the International Journalists’ Network and Greenpeace.

Geetanjali Krishna, a 2023 SJN LEDE Fellow, has been named a contributing editor of Reasons to be Cheerful (RTBC), a solutions-based publication. Krishna began her work in solutions journalism during the pandemic and had “a lightbulb moment.” She explains: “By offering hard data, scientific evaluations of impact, evidence of replicability and deeper insights, SoJo stories tend to be more believable. For me, the possibility of engaging with audiences in this manner was, and still is, very exciting.” In 2022, Krishna started writing solutions stories for RTBC, and her reporting was further enriched by the LEDE Fellowship experience. Krishna received her promotion at RTBC in November 2024, and she is reporting regularly from New Delhi. Since then, she has also been co-running an internship program with UK-based universities and freelancer networks that includes a training in solutions journalism.

Amazônia Vox’s award-winning solutions series on infant mortality led to public action in Brazil. A member of the Legislative Assembly of the State of Pará (Alepa), Carlos Bordalo (Workers’ Party), introduced a bill to prioritize pregnant women from riverside communities in the state’s public health system. Bordalo also delivered a Vote of Applause for the series’ reporting. Alepa’s official website mentions the Amazônia Vox report, and Bordalo posted on social media that the report inspired the proposed legislation. The bill is awaiting a vote by Assembly members, and if approved, will proceed to the state government for sanctioning. At the federal level, an advisor for Alessandra Haber, a national legislator from Pará, contacted Amazônia Vox, as Haber plans a public legislative hearing in Brasília, in early 2025, to discuss solutions for improving health care for pregnant women in riverside communities. The report is also mentioned in Haber's proposal. In the Federal Senate, Senator Zequinha Marinho (Podemos) issued a motion of commendation from the legislative house for the report and its Roche Health Journalism Award from the Gabo Foundation.

As a social justice journalist with over 25 years in the news industry, Liza Ramrayka was an early adopter of solutions journalism (at The Guardian UK) and has built a career focused on applying this reporting approach. As part of her reporting as an SJN 2023-24 HEAL Fellow, she organized a town hall meeting on teen mental health that was hosted by KALW, a Bay Area-based public radio station. She recently produced a solutions-based series on Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander seniors and mental health in the Bay Area for KALW, supported by the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism. Liza has delivered solutions journalism training based on her experience to a wide range of organizations, including San Francisco State University, Bay Area high schools and KALW. Liza said: “My social justice reporting has always been about what is working and how these solutions can be scaled up or replicated for greater impact, whether that’s across a state, a nation or globally. As news outlets and media consumption evolve, evidence-based solutions stories represent empowering and hopeful journalism that we desperately need right now.”

Stony Brook University launched a Master’s in Journalism program with a strong emphasis on solutions and community-driven journalism in the fall of 2022. Solutions journalism is a required course as part of the program, during which students learn the practice’s framework, analyze story examples, review existing toolkits and produce a long-form piece of reporting. Course conveners added multimedia stories and iterated on the curriculum based on students’ requests and needs. Students have also contributed to developing materials to teach SoJo modules in the undergraduate journalism program. Within a year of graduating, three of the program’s graduates were hired in newsrooms to aid in solutions-focused reporting. Educators from journalism schools across the country came to learn about adopting solutions journalism curricula during the 2024 Solutions Journalism Educators Academy hosted by Stony Brook.