You may have heard of something called ‘solutions journalism’. It’s been a buzz phrase in the media industry for a few years now but it’s a concept worth getting your head around. So here it is in a nutshell.
We all know that mainstream news loves reporting on everything that’s wrong in the world; crime, corruption, conflict etc. ‘If it bleeds it leads’ is a popular tabloid adage.
Then in the 1970s came the Watergate scandal, bringing down a US President and earning investigative reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein a Pulitzer Prize. Since then investigative journalism has flourished and journalists have – rightfully – focussed attention on corruption; in government, the public service, and institutions.
But therein lies a problem – journalists focus on everything that’s wrong in society, and forget about the positive stories.
Solutions journalists argue that this focus on the negative has led to a culture where everybody has become more fearful and distrustful of the world around them. When the only stories we read about government and institutions are about corruption and a broken system it leads to an overwhelming distrust of that system and the public institutions within them.
So, good journalism has inadvertently helped get us to our current condition, where nobody trusts anyone in government, or the public service, or any public institution anymore.
Here at The Westsider we’d love you to help us do something a little different. We’d like to shine a light on positive stories and people doing good things in the community, AND in government, or in the public service.
If you know of someone who, quietly behind the scenes, is doing something really positive and making a change for the better, we’d love to put the spotlight on them.
Get in touch and remind everyone that the world is still a wonderful place.
