Impact Stories

After reading the newsroom’s solutions-oriented series about new approaches to providing mental health support to children, Eric Studebaker, director of student engagement and safety coordination at the Idaho State Department of Education, invited a school district employee who had been featured in the reporting to speak to a group of stakeholders. This group, in turn, made recommendations for improving access to mental health in schools that the Department of Education is now considering.

The Reporter helped push its city to address homelessness by publishing a solutions series on potential pathways forward (https://www.sfreporter.com/news/2021/03/22/mayor-proposes-cash-infusion-for-housing/). The reporting (here https://www.sfreporter.com/news/coverstories/2021/03/03/house-rules/ and here https://www.sfreporter.com/news/coverstories/2021/03/10/home-game/) highlighted the need for cash to build a trust fund for affordable housing and the benefits of inclusionary zoning.

On March 15, 2021, a nonprofit providing housing assistance to residents in Cleveland’s Slavic Village neighborhood announced it received a $50,000 gift from an anonymous donor. According to a press release from the nonprofit, Slavic Village Development, the donation was made in response to a Jan. 26 article from the Northeast Ohio Solutions Journalism Collaborative, a project supported by SJN that aims to reinvigorate local media ecosystems through collaborative solutions journalism projects. The story was originally produced and published by The Land, a local nonprofit news outlet, but additional collaborative members republished it.

A month after a Cleveland public radio station aired a solutions story examining the trend of “pay-to-stay” housing legislation, the city of Lakewood in northeast Ohio passed a similar measure, and city leaders in two other communities in northeast Ohio introduced the idea. The story, by Ideastream, examined what happened in other Ohio cities that had already implemented the measure, which allows tenants behind on rent to remain in their homes if they pay what they owe before local courts process the eviction. (Ohio is one of five states that allow landlords to file for eviction as soon as a payment is missed, without offering tenants any extra time to come up with the money.) Ideastream is part of the SJN-sponsored Northeast Ohio Solutions Journalism Collaborative. Housing advocates note that the widely shared story is helping educate the public and landlords.

Outriders, a Warsaw-based nonprofit digital magazine published in Polish and English, was awarded first prize from the International Center for Journalists for a solutions project in the category of science and health reporting in English. Outriders was honored for its online comic, “Favela vs. COVID-19,” which tells the story of the grassroots initiatives launched by the residents of three favelas in São Paulo to address problems caused or exacerbated by the pandemic. The comic was produced by a team of journalists based in Brazil, Poland and Spain and was published in English, Polish, Spanish and Portuguese. It was also longlisted in the Digital Media category of the 2021 One World Media Awards (https://oneworldmedia.org.uk/awards/longlist-2021/).

Hothouse, a digital newsletter focused on climate change, has solutions journalism baked into its editorial identity. In a first for the fledgling publication, which primarily serves audiences in the U.S. and the U.K., Hothouse signed a deal of approximately $25,000 with a content distribution company that prioritizes solutions stories that can be syndicated to local publications in the U.S.