Beacon Cohort

Five news organizations joined SJN’s inaugural Beacon Cohort in 2022, which was focused on moving solutions journalism from an occasional project to an ongoing practice. They were: the Corpus Christi Caller Times, The Dallas Morning News, Flint Beat, Montana Free Press and Richland Source. They all succeeded in moving the needle in their news organizations, tackling everything from improving workflows to addressing staff turnover. They all published solutions stories at least once a month, and succeeded in attracting new readers and building engaged audiences.

Some highlights are below. More details can be found here.

Corpus Christi Caller Times incorporated solutions journalism into everything from hiring to onboarding new staff to performance reviews and editorial meetings. The paper updated its mission statement to better explain why it does this kind of coverage. And newsroom leaders moved slowly, working first with journalists who had the most interest, then supporting others who were inspired by that work.

“We … wanted staff to see they all could do solutions journalism — that it isn’t this special thing on the top of the shelf that gets dusty because only some people know where the ladder is.”

The Dallas Morning News found that new visitors spent two and a half minutes with its solutions stories, compared with about 30 seconds for typical coverage. The paper said it needs more data from more stories to be confident in those results, but they show that:

"Solutions stories may be bringing in an audience that we now don’t have."

Flint Beat established A Fix for Flint, aimed at communicating more clearly to potential funders and existing and new audiences that Flint Beat was intent on producing solutions journalism. Editors also lowered their expectations for how many stories each reporter would write each week, giving them time to do in-depth solutions stories.  

“Although staff worried that fewer stories would lead to declines in readership, we found that at times our audience was larger in the weeks we published a solutions story yet had fewer stories overall.” 

“Overall, we found that solutions journalism, while it takes time, is worth the effort.”

Montana Free Press published solutions journalism as it expanded into five new markets, and found that local-level solutions reporting has the potential to increase readership at a higher rate than traditional reporting.

“It’s critical to make this approach part of a newsroom’s regular process. We are all busy; if you don’t add this work to your list of priorities, it will likely keep getting pushed to the back burner.”

Richland Source has included solutions journalism in its most recent strategic plan and adjusted its workflow to make sure reporters get the kind of editing and feedback needed to produce meaningful solutions stories.

“Solutions journalism is key to our mission and revenue model, and we want to eventually become a newsroom that trains others in the practice.”