Blog #9 – Solutions Journalism
I believe that solutions journalism is a viable option in the modern age of journalism. Whether it could better communities or not? I’m not so sure. Even if you provide backed research with a thorough analysis, not everyone will agree with you even after all of the preverbal “facts”. On the flip possibility, it could resolve a lot of conflict within a community if everyone who is a part of it is a logical thinker who doesn’t get too wrapped up in their own social opinions and is able to adapt when new information is presented.
I do not think that solutions journalism will be a solution to the issues of influencers for example. Could solutions journalism provide an interesting spectrum of topics for readers who are interested? Yes, but it will not combat the modernization of modern mainstream media like short, quick information bits.
In my opinion, I think this is an interesting time for news organizations to experiment with what works for their demographic audiences. Some audiences like positive solutions journalism, and some will like the opposite. So in my opinion, the only way to truly know which type of audience you have is to produce both kinds at first, evaluate, and adjust when correlations are present between the feedback from the articles and the material of them.
Local news organizations can have more flexibility with this. It makes sense for a local news organization to focus on positivity. For example, if a local news organization released a statement about projected dates for when their community will come out of quarantine, it will more than likely get positive feedback. However, if a big, broad organization like New York Times did the same thing, it could experience strong political backlash and people providing their own theories as to why they are “wrong” even if they are just projections.
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