Yesterday we hosted our fifth Media Sessions, with guest speaker Emma Löfgren. On stage, our member Abigail Hartshorn interviewed Emma on what it means to report through a solutions journalism lens. 

Emma is an editor at The Local Sweden, an English-language outlet covering Sweden. The Local’s target audience is immigrants in Sweden, which has led them to develop a particular focus on migration policy and related topics, having been at the forefront of reporting on the latest developments in citizenship rules. 

As she explained during the session, Emma tries to include solutions journalism in several aspects of her reporting. It was an expected comment from Donald Trump about Sweden that inspired her to start implementing solutions journalism elements.

“During his last presidency, he made that comment on «what happened last night in Sweden”, she said, referring to Trump’s allegation, in 2017, of a supposed violent incident in Sweden that would supposedly be the result of the country’s large intake of migrants in previous years.

“The Local is read by a lot of people outside of Sweden”, Emma said, adding that she felt the outlet had a responsibility to deconstruct and contextualize these and other ideas about Sweden. They were soon contacted by the Solutions Journalism Network, kickstarting The Local’s solutions journalism approach.

But what is solutions journalism really?

“Solutions journalism is meant to use the same principles as journalism – it just tackles the problem from another angle”, Emma explained, expanding on the Solutions Journalism Network four criteria for solutions-based reporting:

Response: we present a social problem by talking about the solutions found by specific actors;

Evidence: we show what results the existing solutions have brought;

Limitations: we adress the shortcomings of those solutions, showing how they fail in certain aspects;

Insights: we develop on what we / the audience learn from the solutions implemented, and reflect on what else is needed, and how the response can be improved.

A solutions journalism report “isn’t meant to be a puff piece”, Emma warned. Solutions journalism is, as all good journalism should be, evidence-based reporting.

And why should you consider solutions journalism?

Solutions journalism originated in the “Fixes”, a column in the New York Times launched in 2010 by journalists David Bornstein and Tina Rosenberg. Its goal was to investigate solutions to social issues. Three years later, the two journalists, together with author Courtney E. Martin, started the Solutions Journalism Network, a non-profit dedicated to promoting solutions-focused reporting.

But why should journalists (and audiences) go down the solutions-reporting path?

When we asked Emma, she answered by returning the question back to the audience: how of those present had consumed a news item in the last two days that left them with a bad taste in their mouths? Almost everyone raised their hand.

Then she asked who had read something positive. Only a few hands were raised. “If you found it harder to think of a news piece that made you feel good than one that made you feel bad, you’re not alone”, she remarked, proceeding to open the pages of some of the biggest mainstream news media in Sweden and showing how most of their homepages focused on crime, the looming shadow of war and other headlines that can leave their readers feeling hopeless.

“I feel overwhelmed, sad, angry, and I feel like I’ve heard this before”, she commented, connecting this feeling of hopelessness to the increasing phenomenon of news avoidance. 

“It’s not about reporting on a cute dog, it’s about reporting on what happens in a different way, that it’s trustworthy and provides a template for change”, Emma said.

Many of our members and our wider community are freelancers, which means they spend a large part of their time pitching to editors. In an environment where it’s often the negative stories focusing on social issues, scandals, etc. that get commissioned, some of yesterday’s attendees wondered how one can convince an outlet that a solutions journalism story is worth considering.

“One question I often get from freelancers is how you sell a solutions journalism piece”, Emma said. “A lot of traditional media might react badly and think it’s feel-good journalism. I usually tell people to not mention solutions journalism, but rather try to pitch it as a new angle to a story.”

We hope this inspires you to question some of your assumptions about what constitutes a good, sellable story that audiences will connect with.

Thank you to everyone who attended our last Media Sessions this semester, and special thank you to Emma Löfgren for generously sharing her time and knowledge with us.