By NADIA CAROLINA HERNANDEZ
It can be overwhelming checking the news some days. Headlines about an emerging war, endless political debate and situations beyond our immediate control make us feel more hopeless than empowered about information.
This isn’t a new phenomenon, a report from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism revealed people are avoiding the news.
But the news doesn’t have to be like this.
Solutions Journalism offers a framework for journalists to focus on responses to issues rather than the issues themselves, according to the Solutions Journalism Network.
Jackie Spinner, former war correspondent of The Washington Post, felt she was doing solutions journalism throughout her career.
“I am glad we now have the language and the framework, you know, to make it better and to really, really embrace it,” she said. “But for me, it’s important for our audiences, not just to hear about the problems, but also to think about ways people are trying to resolve them.”
From reporting on the ground in Iraq to advising the Columbia College Chicago Chronicle, Spinner views solutions as a way to empower a community.
“We write about successes in our community,” she said. “Many of our communities of color in Chicago are rightfully angered by the fact that the news media only shows up when there’s a crime or there’s something horrible that happened.”
Of course, that doesn’t mean journalists have to view the world with a rose-colored lens. We know that people and systems need to be held accountable.
And what if there are conflicting viewpoints about what is the “right” solution? Is it always black and white?
Spinner says solutions frameworks don’t ignore the basics of reporting but encourage it.
“We have a responsibility to remind people that our agenda is the truth, our primary responsibility is to check every claim and to uncover,” she said. “People are not always going to like the answer to that.”
Amid a part-time faculty strike at Columbia College Chicago, the Chronicle isn’t only serving the needs of students.
“We keep having to remind people that our audience, as a student-run newspaper, is not just students, it’s also faculty, its administrators, its parents, its alumni, it’s the residents who live around our campus,” Spinner said.
Their diverse audiences are reminiscent of our school newspaper, The DePaulia. We’re thinking of DePaul, Lincoln Park and Chicago concurrently.
But there will always be objections to the solutions. Issues can quickly become politicized and take partisan sides. Presenting a solution doesn’t mean journalists are taking a stance.
“What benefit does it do for people to say, ‘look at everything that’s wrong,’ and not say, but ‘here’s something that’s right.’ I don’t think there’s a fundamental conflict between those two things,” Spinner said.
While the clock is ticking and my time as a student ends, I’m reflecting on how I’ll frame my stories to the public and the impact they have. I hope my stories don’t create a sense of anxiety for the audience but can give the necessary tools for them to feel informed.
“We’re supposed to give people information that they can make decisions that better impact their lives,” Spinner said.
That’s the purpose of journalism after all.
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