Finding a Solutions-Oriented Story

Many people who want to do solutions journalism aren't always sure where to begin. This is partly because, as illustrated above, it can be much easier to spot problems than solutions. It isn't that challenging to find examples of widespread problems. But it can take work to find places that are effectively responding to those problems.

In a way, the phrase "solutions journalism" is a bit of a misnomer. To many people who hear it for the first time, the word "solutions" implies that the journalist is claiming something to be the solution. (We hope that by this point, we have disabused you of that notion.)

In truth, we're interested in getting journalists to cover responses to problems, regardless of how well they are working. Journalists should be clear-eyed about what is working in these responses, and what is not working. The main goal of solutions stories is to yield practical insights for society about how a problem, or similar problems, could be more successfully addressed.

In this definition, it would be possible to bring a solutions lens to a seemingly failed response — as long as it makes society smarter in some way. Here are a few ways to consider doing just that:

Contrast the failure with a similar, more successful, alternative.

Ebola unfortunately spread quickly through much of West Africa in the summer of 2014. There were many important stories written about the plight of countries like Sierra Leone. But in August, the BBC's Catherine Byaruhanga reported on the East African nation of Uganda, which controlled Ebola through a health monitoring system. Her story played a unique role in informing the international community of potential for improvement.

Make sure the failure is instructive.

When interviewing people about a failed response, considering asking, Ã"What can others learn from this? What could have been done differently?" These questions can take your reporting beyond a typical story about a failed response.

Allow yourself to be open to shades of gray.

We would argue that only rarely could something be classified as a complete failure — or, conversely, a complete success. If you look at an issue with enough granularity, there will be shades of gray. As an example, Jeffery J. Silingo's piece in The New York Times examining what he called the "hype cycle" around MOOCs (massive open online courses), concluded that while they have failed to live up to inflated expectations of democratizing education, they "have become an important supplement to classroom learning and a tool for professional development."

Discuss why people are drawn to a failed idea.

This is particularly relevant if you plan to take down a straw man of an idea that has attracted many eyeballs and/or investor money. Take, for instance, TOMS shoes, one of the first and most popular "buy-one-give-one" businesses. Many consumers thought this model was a brilliant way to shop while making the world a better place. However, careful reporting shows that building up local shoe manufacturing would have more impact than donating foreign-made shoes. A full story about TOMS' flaws should include a discussion of why it was greeted with such enthusiasm. (In this case, well-intentioned consumers got smarter and TOMS actually changed their business model.)

Despite the emphasis on data journalism in the last few years, some journalists still shy away from large datasets. And when journalists do turn to data, it's often to investigate a negative outlier. Data usually informs journalistic inquiries like: What city has the worst crime rate? Where is governance the weakest? Where are racial and economic inequalities the greatest?

We suggest a different way for journalists to use data — exploring positive deviants, or slices of a dataset that get at the best performers. For example: Which hospital in Texas has the lowest infection rate? In which state is recidivism the lowest? What country has the highest participation of women in government?

A positive deviant is a signal that something newsworthy could be happening. It's the journalist's job to get the story behind the positive deviant — and in so doing, uncover information that could be valuable for people everywhere. Perhaps the Texas hospital found a way to encourage nurses to speak up when a doctor fails to wash hands. Maybe state prison authorities began providing mental- health services and drug treatment to recently released prisoners. Those are important stories. (That being said, a positive deviant could also signify nothing. It could be a quirk in the data, a function of demographics, or an inaccurate measurement. As we said, it's the journalist's job to find out!)

Positive deviant journalism works backwards from data outcomes. Some journalists hesitate to attempt solutions journalism because they fear being labeled advocates or PR representatives. But with positive deviant journalism, the data will guide you to a story — and therefore will refute any confusion with advocacy.

Next time you look at a dataset, here are a few ways to consider slicing it to find a noteworthy positive deviant. This table is not meant to be exhaustive, but rather to spur your imagination a bit.

You have one reporting day and 500 words. Or you have three hours to put together a 1-minute broadcast. How can you integrate a solutions mindset?

Gold standard solutions journalism is long and time-intensive. Many of the tips we offer elsewhere are best suited for longer-form feature or narrative pieces. We have found several ways, though, to bring a solutions focus into pieces where you do not have the luxury of space.

1. Short solutions pieces work particularly well in cases where the problem is widely known. Consider bedbugs, which a few years ago were pervasive in New York City. A reporter for AM New York — a free newspaper distributed on the subway — spent one sentence on the problem, and was able to jump directly to the better news: that bedbugs were massively on the decline, thanks largely to the city's multi-pronged effort to eradicate them. In 576 words, the author tackled many of our "10 questions."
2. Choose a subject that has data to prove it works. Then you needn't spend a lot of time or words making that case — you can get right to the how it works.
3. Beat reporters may also do solutions stories quickly by covering local programs with good track records. Beat expertise allows you to save a lot of reporting time. We delve more into this on the following page.
4. Some responses are less complex than others, making them a good fit for a short piece. For example, an Atlantic CityLab piece explored how Brazilians are increasingly hitting record on their cell phones when they witness police brutality. It's creating more accountability in the notoriously militaristic police force there.

In many ways, investigative reporting is an ideal vehicle for solutions journalism. The reporting mechanics are essentially the same in both cases: reporters must understand not just what happened, but how and why it happened.

If done well, solutions journalism can strengthen the most hard-hitting investigations. It’s a way to hold public officials responsible not just for bad stuff they may be doing, but also for the good stuff they aren’t trying. Profiling examples of success takes away any excuses for bad behavior. It’s also often a fresher, more reader-friendly way to report on a depressing subject.

Here are two ways you could add a solutions focus to your next investigative series:

Contrast your investigative expose with a solutions story

Strengthen your exposé by also reporting on a comparable or nearby place that’s doing it better. Many investigative series give a cursory mention to better responses. Don’t waste that story! Use it to explore deeply why that response works, and what others can learn from it.

The Center for Investigative Reporting’s Katharine Mieszkowski investigated the difficulty California parents face when looking for vital information about the safety of potential childcare providers. This was a critical first step in holding policy makers accountable. But like so many investigations, it was only the first step; pointing out the inadequacy of California’s outdated system spurred outrage, but didn’t provide answers as to what concerned parents might advocate for instead.

Courtney Martin later reported on Indiana, a state where inspectors are using the latest in technology—including tablets in the field—and administrators are structuring services online, in person, and over the phone so that busy, overwhelmed parents can get the information they need to keep their kids safe. Now California parents don’t just have the knowledge of what’s broken, but a viable example to point to when they demand better services.

Frame your investigation with a solutions story

Let’s say you are exposing bad behavior. For example, nursing home industry lobbyists persuade state legislatures to go soft on nursing home abuse. Or, the for-profit prison industry runs a public relations campaign that keeps states from instituting drug courts and other alternatives to prison.

Has any place successfully bucked that pressure to do the right thing? If so, you can tell the story of one place’s successful efforts to defy it. In the process, you can report on everything you would have put into a more traditionally- framed expose. In our section on solutions reporting and impact, we talk about how Tina Rosenberg did just this in her investigation of how Brazil handled the HIV/AIDS epidemic at the turn of the century.