Impact Stories

Great Salt Lake Collaborative (November 2022): The Great Salt Lake Collaborative, a coalition of 23 news and education partners covering challenges facing the Great Salt Lake, took home the top prize of $20,000 in the national “Local that Works” contest (https://current.org/2022/11/great-salt-lake-collaborative-wins-2022-local-that-works-award/?wallit_nosession=1). The award is a project of Current, a nonprofit news organization that covers public media for industry professionals. Finalists were chosen from a pool of 96 public broadcasters, nonprofit newsrooms and other media groups. The collaborative has produced over 150 stories covering issues like the Great Salt Lake’s dwindling water levels and solutions for abating the crisis, such as the project “At Water's Edge,” (https://www.deseret.com/interactive/2022/10/14/what-happens-if-great-salt-lake-dries-up-solutions) published by Deseret News. Heather May, project manager of the collaborative, said, “I think the focus on solutions is what has brought hope to the community, which I think everyone is yearning for.”

Kansas Leadership Center Journal (November 2022): After the Kansas Leadership Center Journal, a civic issues magazine, published a solutions story about how a small group in Emporia, Kansas, is working to bridge ethnic and linguistic differences (https://klcjournal.com/emporia-spanish-speakers/), the Journal organized an event that drew 45 people, about half of whom identified as Hispanic. Some attendees — who also included a state legislator, the Emporia city manager and two city commissioners — expressed hope that the group would remain connected.

One World Media (2022): In 2022, One World Media, a nonprofit that encourages and celebrates better media coverage from the Global South, centered solutions journalism at the heart of its training program for filmmakers who would later attend its 2023 Global Short Docs Forum. The forum, which brought together 16 participants, emphasized “solutions oriented stories about people who are responding to complex problems with empathy and imagination.” One World Media’s annual impact report states it is “filling a gap worldwide” because the solutions-framed editorial approach “has been popular primarily in print and multimedia but not as much in documentary film.” The nonprofit also introduced the Women’s Solutions Reporting Award in 2022.

Radio Rahma (October 2022): Radio Rahma, a local station in coastal Kenya broadcasting in Swahili that took part in SJN’s Africa Initiative, reported on a training program that was started at the Mvita sub-county level to fight crime. The success of the program, which teaches technical skills to young people in need of opportunities, and the broad distribution of the solutions-focused story (https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/radiorahma/episodes/Mradi-wa-Skills-Mtaani-waboresha-elimu-kwa-Vijana-Mombasa-e1pimll) about it, spurred demand throughout Mombasa County. As a result, the county government resolved to roll out the job skills program countywide. Neighboring counties, including Kwale and Kilifi, have now sent delegations to learn more about the project with a view to initiating it in their counties.

WSHU (October 2022): J.D. Allen, who produces the solutions-focused climate change podcast “Higher Ground” (https://www.wshu.org/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.”

Arizona Daily Star (October 2022): The Arizona Daily Star was awarded the Arizona Newspapers Association’s community service/journalistic achievement award (https://ananews.com/2022/10/2022-winners-bnc-and-excellence-in-advertising/) 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.”