Connections | Solutions Journalism Network Annual Report 2021

A journalist leads a class in solutions journalism in Nigeria

Building training capacity and partnerships

Our interpretation of diversity translates into the journalism entrepreneurs we work with and the themes of their coverage. In 2021, SJN's Africa Initiative funded 20 newsrooms in Nigeria, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda, and the SoJo African fellows published 100 stories, mainly in English but also in Swahili, Hausa, Efik, Luo and Yoruba.

SJN's train-the-trainer (ToT) model has already demonstrated leverage in markets where we see demand for solutions journalism. In 2021, we trained 38 trainers in Europe and Africa.

Solutions Journalism Academy

2021 Solutions Journalism Educators Academy

The 2021 Solutions Journalism Educators Academy met in June and July 2021. The academy is an initiative of the Catalyst Journalism Project at the University of Oregon, designed for university journalism faculty members interested in learning how to teach solutions journalism at the collegiate level.

Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSI) Solutions Journalism Educators Academy

SJN kicked off its inaugural Hispanic Serving Institutions Solutions Journalism Educators Academy in July 2021. Fourteen faculty members from colleges and universities serving Latino/x students in seven states participated in the two-day immersive training. Cohort members also met throughout the year to deepen their knowledge of teaching solutions journalism in the classroom and incorporating it into student newsrooms.

Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) Solutions Journalism Educator Academy

July 2021 was also the culmination of the yearlong HBCU Solutions Journalism Educator Academy supporting 16 faculty members from historically Black colleges and universities. These participants are now helping SJN design the 2022 Educator Academy, which will be open to new participants as well as educators who have attended any of our prior academies.

Part of the cover of Kyuwon Lee's solutions journalism book, with an orange cover and white J

Solutions Journalism Introductory Book

Kyuwon Lee, SJN's international associate, co-authored a solutions journalism introductory book with Mina Lee, a professor at Sookmyung Women's University. The publication was supported by the Korean Society for Journalism & Communication Studies' Journalism & Innovation Publication Fund

See Solutions Journalism Introductory Book

Spreading Insights and SJ Stories

SJN piloted a partnership with Flipboard, a news aggregator site, with the curation of 50 storyboards.

News outlet equity audits

In 2021, we refined and applied an internal "equity metric" to the universe of news outlets that we have worked with and/or those that have stories in SJN's Solutions Story Tracker. The key focus of the metric is to identify the news outlets that are by and for historically and systemically excluded communities, with a goal of prioritizing these news outlets for our outreach, trainings and Story Tracker inclusion.

Multilingual Story Tracker Expansion

Journalists worldwide are producing solutions journalism that speaks to local context, challenges, cultures and mindsets. As of November 2021, SJN's new Multilingual Solutions Story Tracker (MSST) featured 285 stories in 11 different languages and from 32 different countries.

Solutions Story Trackers' growth in news outlets, journalists and countries represented

SoJo Exchange

As the world faced shared challenges during the pandemic, The Solutions Journalism Network's SoJo Exchange asked newsrooms to make solutions stories available for republication by other news outlets free. Any newsroom can run any story from the SoJo Exchange. We've since expanded the exchange to include solutions stories on any subject.

We've shared between seven and eight new stories a week and conservatively averaged one republication daily. We've been able to offer stories from nonprofits such as Civil Eats, Reasons to be Cheerful and Next City, sharing with outlets like The Current of Savannah, Georgia; the Wausau Pilot & Review in Wisconsin; The Oregonian; the StarTribune in Minneapolis, and the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Solutions Journalism Network's SoJo Exchange

We hit some milestones across our communications channels

Four journalists wearing masks gathered around a large standing desk with their laptops

Network Spread: Cohorts and Collaboratives

Economic Mobility

SJN convened two cohorts of newsrooms across the United States in 2021 that covered issues relating to economic mobility. Some of the topics covered, like child care and affordable housing, are complex and appear intractable, but journalists in the cohorts uncovered promising responses in many communities. This initiative was the first that SJN engineered intentionally to encourage cohort-based learning and sharing; that model is now our organizational standard, as cohorts are reporting together on issues including advancing democracy, climate and sustainability, solutions to end homelessness and more.

Here are some of the stories that represent the diversity of coverage:

Be Your Own Boss: More Co-Op Businesses Are Returning Workers' Power
(Economic Hardship Reporting Project/Mother Jones magazine)

Business & Sustainability Initiative

In January 2021, we kicked off the Business & Sustainability Initiative, which brings together 24 newsrooms in the U.S. focused on coverage of climate solutions where businesses are a key actor in the responses. The newsroom projects range from coverage of sustainable agriculture in Montana, the re-imagining of the economy in the Hudson River region through sail freight and how Haiti's plastics problem is turning into an economic benefit. Notably, many of the newsrooms have worked closely with SJN and external partners to measure the impact of their solutions journalism on audiences.

The River, a news outlet that covers the Hudson Valley, launched its Climate Lab in conjunction with the funded project from SJN. The Lab brings together the community through online events and newsletters to highlight its work. One event, "How Do You Solve A Problem Like The Climate?" drew more than 50 people into a discussion with Lissa Harris, a staff writer.

In September, Vania André of the Haitian Times published her first of several stories and videos. She wrote, "It dawned on me after publishing that I no longer want to work on stories about Haiti that share more of the same (stories about political instability, immigration issues, poverty, etc.). While these stories are important overall, there is no shortage of reporters or outlets who will jump on an opportunity to be a part of what essentially in my eyes is starting to amount to poverty porn. Being a part of this cohort forced me for the first time to really hone in on reporting on solutions (still with a critical lens!) and realize that these stories do exist, even if they may be few and far between. This really has changed my perception on my role in my community as a reporter and leader. From now on, I'm only devoting my time to stories about Haiti that show its successes."

Democracy Initiative

Since 2018, SJN has worked alongside hundreds of newsrooms to think differently about how they cover elections and democracy - highlighting the promising practices that are helping expand voter participation and access, for one, but also rethinking how the media cover politics and government. Adopting effective and proven reporting approaches can inspire greater engagement in the news, build trust within communities, focus on solutions, and address voters' urgent need for fact-based, relevant information.

In 2021, we continued this work, launching a new Advancing Democracy initiative, an invitation-only effort for 10 newsrooms led by and serving people from communities that have been historically excluded. While each has its own democracy-focused project, all 10 gather monthly to encourage, teach and learn from each other.

We also planned a new fellowship called Democracy SOS. Designed and led by SJN and our partners at Hearken, the fellowship launched in early 2022 with 22 newsrooms across the country. Democracy SOS is supporting reporters and editors in significantly strengthening journalism's role in advancing our democracy through innovative approaches that build civic engagement, equity and healthy discourse. SJN and Hearken are working jointly on this fellowship, tying together effective trainings that sit at the intersection of journalism and civic empowerment, with equity as a core value and practice. Other partners in the effort include, among others: Trusting News, Good Conflict and the Poynter Institute.

All of our democracy efforts are aimed at helping newsrooms explore how to make our democracy better by reimagining and revamping how journalists cover politics and government so that people are informed, engaged and inspired to act. We envision a future in which newsrooms replace stories about conflicting and competing polls and candidates - which we know contribute to distrust - with more deep, ongoing examinations of important social issues, including the health of democracy itself.

Local Media Project

The Local Media Project at SJN is a five-year effort, launched in 2019, to strengthen and reinvigorate local media ecosystems by catalyzing local news collaboratives reporting on a pressing issue in their communities through a solutions lens.

Our collaborative network grew from six solutions-focused local journalism collaboratives to nine in 2021. Three new collaboratives launched their two-year residencies with more than 30 news and community partners, on topics ranging from climate solutions to affordable housing. Three collaboratives also graduated from the Local Media Project in 2021. The Local Media Project team published two resource guides to spread insights across the network in 2021 -- on tracking impact in journalism collaboratives and audience engagement strategies.

Two guides to take your collaborative to the next level

Annual Report Image

Resolve Philly

EQUALLY INFORMED PHILLY

Launched Equally Informed Philly, an innovative community information hotline available in English and Spanish. City residents answer questions via text message about city services, from how to fight eviction to what resources are available if a community experiences gun violence.

NATIONAL SPOTLIGHT: MEDIA IMPACT FUNDERS

Resolve Philly's co-executive director, Jean Friedman-Rudovsky, spoke at the National Media Impact Funders Journalism Funders Gathering on "Finding Opportunity in crisis: Refining our priorities and caring for each other in order to revive local news."

Check out Equally Informed Philly

Charlotte Journalism Collaborative

THE PANDEM!C: STORIES OF COVID-19

The CJC published "The PANDEM!C: Stories of COVID-19," a graphic novel illustrated by local artists and distributed free to the public through 20 local library branches, area schools and museums. The Charlotte Museum of History highlighted the graphic novel as an important historic record of the pandemic in the city.

FINALIZED A TWO-YEAR STRATEGIC PLAN

The Charlotte Journalism Collaborative graduated from SJN's Local Media Project and formalized its core values, purpose and strategy in a two-year strategic plan.

The Charlotte Journalism Collaborative Strategic Plan 2021

View The PANDEM!C: Stories of COVID-19 here

Granite State News Collaborative

RAISED OVER $400,000

Graduated from a two-year residency with SJN's Local Media Project, having raised more than $400,000 for its local news ecosystem.

PARTNERSHIP GROWTH

Grew to a partnership of 20 New Hampshire news, education and community partners.

LESSONS LEARNED

The collaborative launched a multi-year project focusing on race and equity in New Hampshire. They shared insights on how its members built trust and were able to pivot to coordinate statewide coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic and 2020 election.

Read "How competing New Hampshire news outlets started and stayed working toget…

Northeast Ohio Solutions Journalism Collaborative

PUBLIC RECORDS ARE POWER

The collaborative launched a free text message course to teach members of the public how to access public records to solve problems in their communities. More than 500 people completed the Public Records Are Power course in the first six months.

EXPANDED AUDIENCE REACH

The course reached audiences not traditionally served by legacy news outlets, including mothers whose children were victims of gun violence in Cleveland who are now advocating for policy changes using what they learned in the seven-day course.

Read: "How Public Records are Power opened journalists' knowledge to audiences"

New York and Michigan Solutions Journalism Collaborative

FIRST INTERSTATE COLLABORATIVE

Named one of the top journalism collaboratives in 2021 by the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University. This is the Solutions Journalism Network's first interstate collaborative, and its coverage focuses on responses to challenges facing caregivers of older adults.

FUNDING AWARDED

Awarded additional funding for three part-time support positions, including a data coordinator who is building a Caregiving Coverage Data Center, the first of its kind.

NYMISOJO named Top Collaboration of 2021

Solving for Chicago

ESSENTIAL WORKER REPRESENTATION

Produced a series of stories that accurately represented Chicago's essential workers in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. In an analysis of more than 80 stories by collaborative partners, the collaborative found 66 percent of those represented or cited in coverage were people of color, compared to an estimated 70 percent of the city's essential workers.

SOLVING FOR CHICAGO

Sam Cholke, project director, delivered a lightning talk on best practices when choosing collaborative editorial topics at the Center for Cooperative Media's 2021 Collaborative Journalism Summit.

Watch: Project Director Sam Cholke speak at 2021 Collaborative Journalism Summit

Central Pennsylvania Climate Solutions

CLIMATE SOLUTIONS IN PA

A new collaborative focused on climate literacy and adaptation in central Pennsylvania.

PARTNERSHIPS FOR CLIMATE SOLUTIONS

Partners include WITF, La Voz Latina Central, Q'Hubo News, Sankofa African American Theater Company, York Daily Record/USA Today Network, a local university and a public opinion research center.

Watch "Climate Solutions: Allow us to introduce ourselves"

Dallas Media Collaborative

A new collaborative focused on affordable housing in Dallas launched in 2021.

This collaborative includes seven newsrooms, three universities and a local nonprofit organization working to address childhood poverty. It is the first in the Local Media Project to include a choral ensemble.

Solving Sacramento

A new collaborative focused on solutions to affordable housing and the arts in Sacramento, California.

News and community partners contributed more than $4,000 to a fundraising campaign to support the collaborative in its first month.

Visit Solving Sacramento

Granite State News Collaborative director Melanie Plenda.

We celebrate Local Media Project partners whose work earned recognition in 2021:

The Lenfest Institute's News Philanthropy Summit featured Local Media Project grantees Granite State News Collaborative and Charlotte Journalism Collaborative: "A systems approach to collaborative fundraising."
The Local Media Association highlighted Local Media Project members Buckeye Flame, Philadelphia Gay News and QNotes among the top 5 LGBTQ+ news outlets to watch in 2021.
North Carolina Local News Lab featured Local Media Project's Charlotte Journalism Collaborative and partner Queens University's student news service: "College journalists filling community gaps."
The Center for Cooperative Media's Collaborative Journalism Summit featured several Local Media Project partners in 2021:
- Charlotte Journalism Collaborative participants The Charlotte Observer and WCNC in "North Carolina: the state of collaboration."
- La Noticia, member of the Charlotte Journalism Collaborative, in "How bilingual collaborations work and how they can better engage diverse audiences."
- Journalist Amy Yee interviewed SJN's Liza Gross: "Lessons from 9 Solutions Journalism Network collaboratives."
- Ju-Don Marshall, chief content officer of Charlotte Journalism Collective partner WFAE, spoke on how listening drives collaboration.