A Conversation With: Temple University’s “Covering Addiction” Course
Temple University students Jenny Roberts and Julie Christie discuss the solutions journalism project they oversaw at the Klein College of Media and Communication
Holly Wise, SJN’s director of journalism school engagement, recently conducted an email interview with Temple University students Jenny Roberts and Julie Christie who oversaw a solutions journalism project, “Covering Addiction.” Roberts and Christie served as the executive editor and managing editor, respectively, of the second iteration of the project, which is based out of the Klein College of Media and Communication at Temple University in Philadelphia and led by Professor Jillian Bauer-Reese.
HOLLY WISE: Could you explain the Covering Addiction reporting project?
JENNY and JULIE: Throughout the spring 2018 semester, the two of us, along with about a dozen other students, reported on addiction and recovery stories in our city. We wrote about topics, like treatment programs for mothers and pregnant women, housing for people using medication-assisted recovery and new approaches being taken by police officers to help people with addiction.
With each story topic, we wrote about the problems and barriers people face, as well as potential or already existing solutions. Our goal was not to sensationalize the issues we were covering, but to responsibly and compassionately share the stories and knowledge of our sources with readers in the hopes of educating them on the landscape of addiction and recovery in our city.
We hope to delve deeper into how our project unfolded and what we’ve learned from this experience with solutions journalism in our answers to the questions below.
How did solutions journalism influence your reporting process?
JENNY: Solutions journalism influenced my reporting process by making my method of gathering information more streamlined. I began by defining the problem that my story would be addressing by finding statistics and combing through previous reporting on my topic, which focused on the struggles pregnant women and mothers face with addiction and recovery. Specifically, I looked at what medical problems can occur during and after pregnancy for women and their newborns, as well as environmental and societal problems women face, like stigma.
Once I felt like I had a foundational understanding of the problem, then I began looking for organizations, people and policies geared toward helping. From there, I moved on to the women who have been helped by these organization and learned about their personal stories. I think without a solutions journalism lens I probably would have jumped the gun and began my reporting process by looking for women affected by the problem right away, without having a solid understanding of the issues at play.
JULIE: I was responsible for making sure that all the stories in our project were legitimate solutions stories. At the very beginning of the semester, our class went through a Solutions Journalism training so everyone could understand what their projects were meant to be. Then, throughout the semester I sat down with each reporter and figured out how their reporting was progressing. Some were able to find more about the problem, and others had found too many solutions. We narrowed down the solutions by following the SJN criteria: were they replicable and effective?
The most difficult part of adding a solutions angle was making sure that the reporting didn’t turn into advocacy. I noticed that while the students weren’t taking an advocate’s role, the fact that we spoke to so many activists for stories gave our reporting an immediate slant. We had to remedy this by making sure we didn’t shy away from limitations to each of the solutions.
Describe the ways you engaged with your audience and community. In what ways (if any) did solutions journalism change the way you interacted with and interviewed community members?
JENNY: Our class engaged with community members throughout the city by setting up tables in public places and asking passersby to answer one or all of the three following questions: How has addiction impacted your life? If you could design a solution for addiction, what would it look like? And what is the news media missing when we write about addiction?
We asked people to write down their name and answers on index cards if they felt comfortable, so we could incorporate them into our online project and share them with our classmates. And if people didn’t feel comfortable writing down answers, then we just chatted with them and told them about our project.
I set up my table with my classmate Matthew McCann (who wrote about how addiction intersects with the criminal justice system) outside of the McPherson Library in Kensington, not far from the city’s former encampments. We spoke with people in recovery, people with an active addiction and people just on their way to the library. Other students in our class set up tables in parts of the city like West Philly and Fishtown.
In terms of how solutions journalism changed my experience with community members, I think I was more focused on asking people what helped them in their recovery — what organizations, methods and/or treatment centers — rather than focusing on the nitty gritty details of what drugs they may have used during their addiction. I realized through this project that the specifics of which drugs people may have used in the past are not always essential to include in an addiction story. Sometimes all that readers need to know is that someone struggled with addiction — that’s it. This approach allowed me more word space in my article to explain how people found their way into recovery, which I think is more helpful for readers to know about.
JULIE: We also went to community meetings around the city because in the middle of our reporting, Philadelphia officials were trying to convince residents to support private Comprehensive User Engagement Sites (CUES) where people with addiction could use drugs under supervision. Those meetings were fascinating, because people who are equally passionate about ending the addiction crisis were so divided on the topic. It was easy for us to fall into a pattern of thinking, “This is how to fix the crisis.” But our community engagement broke that, because the addiction crisis is so complicated and nuanced. Each person we spoke to outside of interviews had something valuable to add or a new way to think about things.
At the end of the semester, we hosted a community event for anybody to attend. The project was presented in a “soft launch” as there were still tiny details to fix and last-minute photos to swap out. But the event provided us with some of the most valuable feedback possible. The very people we hoped to target with our reporting showed up, and they responded in realtime to our reporting. While many said they appreciated the work we did and were grateful that we had taken the time to report so thoroughly, we also faced criticism. What stuck out to me the most was that most of our audience and our content contained white people. Yes, the photographs showed diversity — that was a conscious effort our Visual Editor, Sydney Schaefer, made. But our topics barely skimmed the subject of race and addiction, which was a major shortfall for reporters based in North Philadelphia.
Community engagement was essential to this project. Without going to other people to help direct our projects, I know our reporting would have been completely flawed and our work likely unpublishable. It certainly couldn’t have been solutions journalism without it. On their own, people told us they wanted the media to stop focusing on the problem and start focusing on the solutions.
Will the solutions journalism framework impact your future journalistic endeavors? If so, how?
JENNY: I think the solutions journalism framework will definitely impact any future journalistic endeavors I pursue. I think my experience with Covering Addiction has convinced me of the importance of thorough research and preparation at the beginning of projects and stories, so I plan to apply this practice in all future reporting. I also think that when I cover stories that focus on problems, I’ll be more likely to seek out organizations and policies trying to help, whether that be in my coverage area or other regions of the U.S. or world. Showing readers potential solutions is just as important as informing them of what resources already exist or detailing the problems.
JULIE: I try to work journalism into as many projects as I can. It brings more angles and content to a story. And the fact that I’m telling the whole story gives me much more confidence in my reporting. I want to produce impactful journalism, and I know that solutions journalism is a tried and true way to do that. Once I started thinking about solutions journalism as a standard part of reporting, it’s become a natural part of my process.
How can journalism students embrace solutions journalism in their work?
JENNY: Journalism students can embrace solutions journalism in their work by finding societal issues they care about, whether that be addiction, immigration, education or another subject, and dedicating their journalistic focus to diving deeper into the specific problems and solutions that exist around this topic. Students should always include potential solutions in their stories and do follow-up stories if new solutions arise. Students can also make sure that when they report on a problem they offer contact information for existing resources and organizations in their area that can directly help readers who need it.
JULIE: Whether it’s work for class, internships or student media, journalism students can take solutions journalism and apply it to anything. What’s great about focusing on solutions journalism doesn’t take money or more time — it just takes another question. Any time a journalism student gets started on a story, they should try to tackle it from a solutions angle. There are so many resources and points of inspiration online that it’s easier to start doing solutions journalism than it is to avoid it.
What are your personal learnings from this reporting project and solutions journalism?
JENNY: I learned so much about addiction and recovery from this reporting project. I learned about the science behind addiction and overdose, the options for harm reduction and how addiction often affects those with already existing trauma. In term of reporting, I learned that compassion and person-first language are essential when reporting on addiction and in solutions journalism in general.
JULIE: I developed an even deeper appreciation for the impact the media has on people’s’ lives. I saw first-hand how stigmatization in addiction reporting kills people and how outreach and compassion rebuilds trust. This project completely changed how I look at objectivity within newsrooms and how journalists should go about reporting stories. I learned that journalists need to reach out to their communities if they want to do the best reporting that they can, and people are going to talk if they know you genuinely want to listen.
The two of us have grown so much as reporters and editors from Covering Addiction and were afforded so many opportunities through this class to grow as journalists. For one, we got to delve into a coverage topic in a way that gave us a taste of what it might be like to be a beat reporter in the future. We also had the chance to learn how to cultivate trust with readers and sources to make sure we were practicing responsible reporting, and ultimately, creating true service journalism. Through this class, we learned that when it comes down to it, solutions journalism is really just good reporting. It’s how all journalism should be — it’s thorough, engaging and responsive.
Are you a journalist who wants to learn how to do solutions journalism? All the tools you need can be found in the SJN Learning Lab.
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