The Next Iteration of Journalism: Shifting From a “Problem Frame” To A “Solution Frame”

The AP Interactive’s Jonathan Stray just wrote a powerful essay on “Journalism For Makers,” which roughly, give or take a few, correlates with what we at Dowser Media have been calling Solution Journalism. 

They’re two different names, tackling the same basic problem: journalism, in its current state, is not designed to help society self-correct. “It’s not,” as Jonathan put it “a journalism for the people who will put together the next generation of civic institutions.”  

But our visions of its implementation are a tad different.

For Jonathan, the journalism that will fix tomorrow—or at the very least the financial crisis—deconstructs complex systems for a specialized subset of “makers” —DIY designers, fluent in the intricacies of complex, technical systems and hard-wired to rewire the structures that power society. He calls it a “techno-social investigative journalism for nerds.”

 “Its aim,” he writes, “is a deep understanding of the complex systems of the real world, so that plans for a better world may be constructed one piece at a time by people who really know what they’re talking about.”

I appreciate this argument. Deconstructing a broken system is the first step to identifying a problem’s root cause, and, fortunately, a few individuals are already tinkering with this type of work—Kevin Fagan’s reports on homelessness in the San Francisco Chronicle, ProPublica’s explainers on issues like fracking and the economy (which, disclosure, I worked on), The Guardian’s Ultimate Climate Change FAQ, and The Guardian’s new behind-the-scenes banking blog.

But still, overall, it kind of sucks. All of journalism, including Dowser, should improve the coverage that aims to simplify these complex systems. This reporting, this “journalism for makers,” will be a key piece of the media puzzle that ultimately helps society self-correct. You can’t fix anything without understanding the problem. 

However, this, alone, is not enough. 

 To really help society re-route, the press also has to investigate solution strategies that are already in play. Right now, that’s not happening with consistent quality. Participants in a 2008 AP study overwhelmingly agreed that “all news is negative.” In the last three decades, the New York Times has referred to the Grameen Bank - the microfinance pioneer—in 84 stories, a third of them since Grameen won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006. By contrast, it referred to the Tamil Tigers in eight hundred stories and the Irish Republican Army in 3,600. If a story does include a referral to a solution, it’s usually cursory.

Yet, studies have shown that people need four pieces of information to innovate and change:

1. A clear definition of the problem in concrete terms.
2. An investigation of the solutions attempted so far.
3. A clear definition of the concrete change to be achieved.
4. The formulation and implementation of a plan to produce this change (as this happens, the press should document the process.)

Across the board, studies show that you elicit positive behavior change by highlighting what works (a complicated topic, for another post). But unfortunately, most news stops after “the incident,” and quality solution journalism—not the hagiography of CNN Heroes or ABC’s Person of the Week—is a rare gem. Much of it exists in long-form narrative and in books.

Lack of stories is not the problem. Since Bill Drayton founded Ashoka in the 1980s and brought a terminology to the field of social enterprise, the movement has absolutely exploded. Journalist/ social entrepreneur Paul Hawken, who’s been involved in social change for over twenty years, estimates that there are over one- “maybe even two” - million grassroots organizations working toward social change.

The press should be critically investigating this bevy of solution strategies, which boast their own intricacies and complexities. A hospital in Bogota, Colombia, for example, found that a strategy called Kangaroo Care, which uses mothers as human incubators, drastically reduced infant mortality. Is this strategy really effective? And if so, why? Could it be scaled to other regions of the world, or would cultural differences impede its expansion?

I am, in no way, touting a replacement for muckraking. That’s more vital than ever.

Solution journalism is simply the yin to muckraking’s yang. For people and systems to change, people have to know both what’s broken and what’s working. Doing anything less stunts growth. (Good) parents don’t criticize their children every day and cross their fingers that they’ll become better people. They show them all the options available, so the child knows what’s possible. Exposing problems is one half of the story. Exposing solutions is the other half.

In this second iteration of journalism, we also have to recognize that the change movement is composed of grassroots social entrepreneurs, and that highly technical “makers” may not be the only group to devise solutions.

Even the United Nations, the biggest body of solution policy makers, has started to turn to individual citizens within the public. I covered Mashable’s Social Good Summit last week, a four-day conference on social media and social change, and in a pre-summit conference call, organizers repeatedly emphasized that the summit is held during UN Week because change today is “a new conversation, with a new audience.”

“Lots of people can get involved, and then the UN is the way to bring it to scale,” said Kathy Calvin, CEO of the UN Foundation. “It used to be about big government solutions and aid, but now it’s about micro-solutions and micro-aid.”

Not to mention that several scalable solution strategies aren’t built on highly technical, intricate systems. Empathy and behavior change, for example, are emerging as strategies to combat a myriad of issues, including poverty, ethnic conflict, crime, violence and education. Within the financial crisis, strategies like localism—which the residents of Bellingham, Washington have found to be a viable strategy for boosting a city’s economy—don’t rely on incredibly technical systems that only, as Jonathan describes the audience, “policy and tech geeks” could cobble together.  

Some strategies, of course, will come from makers. Peer-to-peer lending, which is yet another strategy to combat the financial crisis, rests on highly technical back-end software that, essentially, replaces the job of a bank. And Lending Club, the main peer-to-peer organization in the States, has seen an average 9% return since its inception in 2007. That’s a promising piece.

I also agree that the best kind of Solution Journalist, the actual reporter, will be a maker. A problem-solver. Dowser’s founder, David Bornstein, started his career as a computer programmer, precisely because he liked creating elegant solutions, and only a curious, diagnostic mind will enjoy this investigative work—full of questions like “why?” and “How?” I have a hunch that the muckrakers, the “watchdogs,” may be prime candidates. Simply re-framing some questions could shift them to, as one of Jonathan’s commenters phrased it, “hound dogs.” (Which, for the record, I love.)

But in terms of restricting our target audience to a highly technical group of DIY designers, lawyers and policy wonks? That seems dangerously narrow. Change can come from many sectors in many forms.

A couple caveats before I wrap-up and introduce my thesis:

A) I’m not endorsing any of the solution strategies above. They still need to be investigated and evaluated. 

B) I really do believe that quality solution journalism—the right combination of deconstructing broken systems and exploring viable solution strategies—has a big potential market. 

Social enterprise is a huge field, one of the most popular disciplines on college campuses, and Dowser’s focus groups from a couple years ago found that young people—whether they want to be doctors, teachers, businessmen or lawyers—want careers of impact. They want to create a professional path aligned with their values. To do that, they need information. 

Also, my preliminary research this summer showed that quality solution investigations consistently made the Most Liked and Most E-Mailed lists on The New York Times. Almost every Fixes column made Most-Emailed. And this  New York Times article about how medical schools are changing admissions processes to screen for doctors with communication skills—which  was a good story, relevant to a wide group and properly placed in the Health section— made the Most Popular list for a good two weeks.

Point being: I think there’s a place for this type of journalism.

And this is why I’ve decided to do my Studio20 Master’s thesis in partnership with Dowser Media. From now until December, I’m researching, developing and prototyping a digital toolkit to help journalists who’d like to integrate reporting on social innovation into their workflows.

Products in the works include:

• A solid definition of Solution Journalism. I’m compiling a short explainer video, a manifesto and a casebook of good and not-so-good examples
• A usable tips database. Dowser has vetted 700+ quality organizations, that currently live in an Excel spreadsheet. We also have existing Solution Journalism stories, and a constant influx of new tips. (If you have nominations, please tweet them out with the hashtag #SolutionJournalism.)
• Solution field maps. These will include a field overview, strategies, key players, major organizations, pros and cons, critical documents and reports. Everything that’s in a reporter’s head when he reports a story. 
• Reporting recipes, a la ProPublica.
• Tutorials that explain how to ask the right questions, interact with social enterprises and keep your story from veering into advocacy.
• Back-end support from Dowser.

Under the guidance of agile development, these products will probably change as the project progresses. I don’t want to make something that people won’t use, and I’m currently recruiting interested journalists to serve as guinea pigs (want to learn more? E-mail me at blair@dowser.org).

And in the spirit of open-source, I’m documenting the progress on this blog. All of these products will be built so that the crowd can add to and edit our resources. I’ve read a lot about social enterprise the last year, but I don’t pretend to be an authority. In this field, especially, the experts are on the ground doing the work. Your sources are your experts.

Solution Journalism, or Journalism For Makers or whatever name we have yet to come up with (Ideas? Contact me), is in its alpha version. So assault me with feedback. Keep up the conversation online, offline and in a range of spaces and verticals—and not just in sections called “Impact.” People need to see stories and conversations that expose corruption, next to pieces that deconstruct the system, next to pieces that investigate solutions.

We need to change the way we frame the world. It shouldn’t end at “destruction,” “problem,” “corruption,” “incompetence.” But rather, ask “Why?” Why is this happening? And most, importantly - how can we start to fix it? There probably won’t be just one answer. But asking these questions is the way to start.