Solutions Journalism Imposters
We’ve found that to explain what solutions journalism is, it’s often effective to offer examples of what it isn’t. Here are seven types of solutions journalism impostors we’ve all seen in the media before. All of these types of journalism have a place in society, and some can yield good journalism. We just want to draw the distinction that they’re not what we’re talking about when we say “solutions journalism.”
Hero Worship: These are stories that celebrate or glorify an individual, often at the expense of explaining the idea the individual exemplifies. Instead of talking about the merits of an approach an individual is advancing, the piece will gush about the person’s decision to leave a high-paying job to save the world.
Example: CNN Heroes often focus more on an individual than on his/her ideas. Solutions-oriented stories have characters, but the stories are centered more on the work they do.
Silver Bullet: These stories are often seen in the tech and innovation sections. They describe new gadgets in glowing terms, often referring to them as “lifesavers.” Also, a note: Money is sometimes considered a silver bullet.
Example: This New York Times story about an inflatable soccer ball speaks about it in glowing terms, referring to it as a “lifesaver.”
Favor for a Friend: You can sometimes distinguish this impostor because the sole or predominant voice is that of the organization being profiled. Like the silver bullet story, it doesn’t have much in the way of a ‘to be sure’ paragraph–i.e. the caveats to success–and appears as thinly veiled PR.
Example: This piece in Huffington Post where everyone quotes works for AB InBev.
Think Tank: Opinion journalism can explore solutions if it contains real reporting about existing responses to problems (and the results). But “think tank journalism” refers to journalism that proposes things that don’t yet exist.
Example: This piece in Washington Monthly offers a proposal to solve affirmative action. As per our definition, solutions journalism discusses events that have already occurred.
The Afterthought: This is a paragraph or sound bite at the end of a problem story that gives lip service to efforts at solving it. The solutions aren’t considered with real seriousness, but rather thrown in as an afterthought.
Example: The two-hour documentary “The House I Live In” spends most of its running time exploring the problems in the American criminal justice system; at the end, the filmmaker hints at a few initiatives working to combat it, but not in a serious way.
Instant Activist: A lot of people think, when seeing the phrase ‘solutions journalism,’ that we’re promoting pieces that ask the reader to click a button at the end and give $5 to a cause. We’re not. We recognize the importance of highlighting issues and raising money, but that’s not the goal of solutions journalism as we define it. Rather, we’re trying to encourage journalists to tell the whole story so as to more faithfully represent society.
Example: This is something you’ll often see on websites like change.org. They offer an emotional plea and then ask for support for a specific cause, as a means to “solve” the issue.
Chris P. Bacon: This kind of journalism is heartwarming, quirky, and one-off. It often appears at the end of the evening news or on Thanksgiving, in the form of a kid with a lemonade stand. It tells the viewer that the world has good people doing cute things, but doesn’t really get to the structural issues that we want solutions journalism to address.
Example: A guy who made a wheelchair for his beloved pig. Adorable, absolutely. Solutions journalism, absolutely not.
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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