Impact Stories

J.D. Allen, who produces the solutions-focused climate change podcast “Higher Ground”, received an Eric and Wendy Schmidt Excellence in Science Communications Award from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. Allen produces his show for WSHU, a licensee of Sacred Heart University, and an NPR member station that serves Connecticut and Long Island. The award, in the Best Science Reporting on the Local/Regional Level category, was for the first season of the show. Allen is a lecturer at Stony Brook University School of Communication and Journalism (SoCJ) and serves as managing editor at the radio station. The station collaborates with SoCJ, which is a Solutions Journalism Hub. Laura Lindenfeld, SoCJ dean and executive director of the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science, said, “J.D.’s hard work to shed light on Long Island communities’ efforts to mitigate the impact of climate change helps demonstrate the importance of effective science communication and solutions-oriented storytelling in this struggle.”

The Arizona Daily Star was awarded the Arizona Newspapers Association’s community service/journalistic achievement award for its ongoing project “Serving Tucson With Solutions Coverage.” The beat, led by journalist Caitlin Schmidt, is dedicated to solutions reporting and has focused on engaging the community by gathering input on topics of coverage. Schmidt said, “Solutions reporting aims to shine a light on people trying to make our community a better place, and that’s something we could all use a little more of right about now.”

Enlace Latino NC, a Spanish-language publication in North Carolina, and Southerly, a now-defunct publication reporting on environmental issues in the South, jointly covered the convergence of economic mobility and environmental issues in rural Latinx and immigrant communities in North Carolina. Their 2021 work and collaboration, funded in part by SJN, was recognized with the award for Collaboration of the Year in the small revenue category from LION (Local Independent Online News) Publishers. Judges said: “This partnership is an excellent example of how deep trust between collaborators and a shared desire to serve a community can result in real impact. Beyond its immediate impact, the collaboration also led an outlet [Enlace Latino NC] to start practicing solutions journalism, which is a huge win.”

A 2014 New York Times story titled "Teaching Children to Calm Themselves" about Head Start Trauma Smart, which helps children address trauma, led to an expansion of the program from two to 12 states by September 2022, and a huge surge of interest. “It took me two and a half years to catch up with the waiting list of people who wanted to be contacted from that one article,” said Janine Hron, former CEO of the Crittenton Children’s Center, where the program was developed. In New York City, the Trauma Smart program has become part of the city’s mental health strategy.

Inspired by a Boston Globe article about how a small amount of money can be as important as medicine in treating patients, the TV series “New Amsterdam” featured that idea in an episode (https://www.nbc.com/nbc-insider/are-money-atm-prescriptions-real-new-amsterdam), one of the first times — if not the first — that a solutions story from SJN’s Solutions Story Tracker was used as the basis for a TV show.

After Prism, a national nonprofit led by journalists of color, published a story that examined the advantages of a four-day workweek, the publication itself adopted a four-day schedule. In an article explaining that decision (https://prismreports.org/2022/09/15/prism-adopts-four-day-workweek/), Ashton Lattimore, Prism's editor-in-chief, said the newsroom found that the benefits far outweighed the challenges.