is Solutions Journalism an Answer for the Media Today?

In September, the CBC radio show Out in the Open broadcast a piece about how difficult it is for homeless women to get sanitary napkins or tampons when they get their periods.

The piece, which was reprised in December, described how shelters and food banks can provide food and other items, but usually can’t provide the one thing that poor, homeless women need the most when they menstruate. 

This leads to all sorts of challenges and problems, including putting their health and well-being at risk.

It was a fine piece of journalism, bringing to our attention a serious problem in desperate need of fixing.

But when the piece came to an end, it just ended. It offered no solutions or ways for listeners to help.

During the reprise broadcast, the producer noted that the piece had provoked a lot of feedback. It even prompted some Canadians to donate menstrual supplies to homeless shelters.

This caused the host of the show to note, with what seemed a bit of surprised satisfaction, that “it is a thing in journalism to try to spur people to make the world a better place and change things.”

If that’s the case, it’s more by accident than design.

For the majority of reporters, their only job is to report the story. They may hope that someone might follow up on an issue that needs attention, but it’s not their job to promote those actions.

Once the report is finished, their work is done. After that, it’s up to media consumers to figure out on their own how to take it from there.

The only exception to this rule is exceptional cases of national or international emergency—like last spring’s Fort McMurray wildfire.

Then the media may encourage people to respond, providing the names of organizations accepting donations, or other ways to help.

But most news report just end with no solutions, like the piece about periods.

If someone wants “to make the world a better place,” they are on their own.

But is that good enough anymore?

A new way of thinking about journalism says no.

Called Solutions Journalism, and sponsored by the Solutions Journalism Network, its goal is to help journalists “overcome their professional discomfort with reporting about creative responses to problems.”

“How do we help journalists tell whole stories?” they ask. 

“Not just stopping after revealing a deficiency, but looking further into how people are trying to construct solutions?”

They also aims to help journalists report on potential solutions “without engaging in overly-simplified ‘good news’ or ‘hero-oriented’ reporting.”

This kind of reporting, they go on to say “should never take the form of advocacy, but rather sound coverage of problem solving.”

It should be “top-notch story-driven journalism that helps society understand how problems are being addressed, looking at ideas and models that show promise based on evidence and data.”

What do you think? Can this work? Can the media move beyond just giving people information, and start providing ways to fix problems as well? Should it?

At a time when many people are turning away from the media because they are tired of being told all the time how bad things are, providing solutions to some of our most intractable problems might be a way for journalism to reclaim its important place in society.

It might be worth a try.

Lessons from the Success of the Washington Post

'Profitable' Washington Post adding more than five dozen journalists.

That was the headline in a recent Politico story, providing some good news in an otherwise grim time for the newspaper industry.

While glad for the Post, not every media outlet has a gazillionaire like Jeff Bezos behind it to help turn things around. 

But maybe there are a few things even small publications could learn from its success, as described in the Poilitco article. 

These include:

A commitment to mobile. “We’ll make investments in mobile video,” says Fred Ryan, the Post’s Publisher and CEO. This includes mobile news and ads of 15 seconds or less.

A commitment to breaking news. The Post will add more investigative reporters, who will work to keep up with the fast pace of news today.

A commitment to digital. Smartphones, Kindle, Facebook—that’s the future of news. 

A commitment to circulation. In the past, advertising was the main generator of revenue for newspapers. But as print advertising continues to fall, that is being reversed. 

The Post has seen a 75 percent increase in new subscribers in 2016, doubling its digital subscription revenue. In the years ahead, the Post expects subscription sales to be its leading source of revenue.

A commitment to commentary. As the Post expanded its op-ed contributors and volume, “opinion” stories drove more readers to subscribe than any other content type.

This isn't surprising. At a time when anyone can get breaking news anytime and anywhere, and for free, few are going to pay for it. But they might pay to learn more about what that news means, how it fits into various contexts, and how it may affect their lives.

A commitment to technology. Along with the journalists, about 80 digital designers, mobile developers, video and audio (podcast) creators and software engineers have desks in the Post's newsroom.

“This is the face of a modern newsroom,” says Politico, adding that “these new newsroom jobs tell us a lot about what the Post believes is now creating a new virtuous circle of growth for the company.”

A commitment to customization. The Post sends out 62 different newsletters to readers, customized by topics such as government, politics, sports, economics, faith, etc. 

These newsletters “magnify the impact of each story the Post produces,” says Politico. “That’s the new digital virtuous news circle in creation.”

Can other publications learn from the Post? I think so.

Can they put them into practice? Maybe. That's where having someone with a lot of money sure can help. 

Why is so Much Fake News Being Shared? Lorem Ipsum Might Hold an Answer

There’s been a lot of discussion about fake news of late—how prevalent it is, how it influenced the recent U.S. election, how to spot it.

When it comes to spotting it, that’s easy; if the title contains an exclamation mark, it’s either fake or not worth your time; that kind of punctuation is almost never used by traditional journalists.

Similarly, any headline containing the words “amazing,” bizarre,” or “unbelievable,” especially when accompanied by exclamation marks, are either fake or to be avoided.

Of course, even if you click on the link, a cursory read of the article would quickly tell you whether the article is fake.

But that’s one of the problems with fake news; I wonder how many people actually bother doing that?

Research reported by the Washington Post suggests that might be the case.

Last June the satirical news site the Science Post published a block of gobbledygook “lorem ipsum” text under the under the headline: “Study: 70% of Facebook users only read the headline of science stories before commenting.”

The fake “article” contained two repeated sentences at the beginning:

“A recent study showed that 70% of people actually never read more than the headline of a science article before commenting and sharing. Most simply see a headline they like and click share and make a comment. A recent study showed that 70% of people actually never read more than the headline of a science article before commenting and sharing. Most simply see a headline they like and click share and make a comment.”

What followed after was the “lorem ipsum” text that publishers use to fill out a page before the actual text is inserted.

And what happened?

Almost 46,000 people shared the post—an example, the Washington Post said, “of life imitating comedy.”

Another new study reported by the Post was done by computer scientists at Columbia University and the French National Institute. It found that 59 percent of links shared on social media have never actually been clicked.

In other words, most people appear to re-tweet news without ever reading it.

“People are more willing to share an article than read it,” study co-author Arnaud Legout said in a statement.

“This is typical of modern information consumption. People form an opinion based on a summary, or a summary of summaries, without making the effort to go deeper.”

According to the Post, these blind shares and likes “are really important in determining what news gets circulated and what just fades off the public radar. So your thoughtless retweets, and those of your friends, are actually shaping our shared political and cultural agendas.”

Why do people share links they never read?

It could be a case of the so-called mirroring effect, where people like and share things they think will make them look smart, generous or caring to their friend on social media—it’s part of their online brand personality.

It could be a case of confirmation bias; Hillary Clinton may not have done all those terrible things, but I wouldn't put it past her! And so we click on "share."

Or maybe it's just the rush of the moment; who has time to actually read all those articles our friends send us on Facebook or Twitter?

And so a lot of fake news, and other kinds of news that might best be avoided, appears in our news feeds more by accident than design.

The Destructive Practice of Charity Ranking: Doing Good Well Costs Money

Once again, the non-profit I work for received a favorable grade from a charity ranking organization. Not that you would know; we aren't advertising that news. Why not? Well, as I explained a year ago in a post on my On Faith blog, I don't agree with the ranking since low overhead is a terrible measurement for charities. Bruce MacDonald, CEO of Imagine Canada, feels the same way about charity rankings, as the interview below shows. 

Are you planning to make a year-end donation to charity?

If the answer is yes, you’re not alone. It is estimated that over $5 billion is given by Canadians to non-profit organizations in the last six weeks of each year.

Much of that is given by people of faith. Research repeatedly shows that the more religious a person is, the more they give to charity.

Many donors have already decided who to give to. But others may not yet have made up their minds. With over 86,000 charities in Canada, it can be hard to choose. What to do?

Many people will turn to the increasingly-popular lists of Canada’s “best” charities. These rankings, which rate charities according to their financial efficiency—the best bang for the donated buck—get a lot of publicity in the media around Christmastime.

For many Canadians, they are a popular way to determine which group to give to. It saves a lot of time, and donors can know their money went to the "best" non-profit groups, the ones that spend the least on overhead. 

Or is that the case? Bruce MacDonald doesn’t think so.

.

According to MacDonald, President and CEO of Imagine Canada, an umbrella group for Canadian charities, the problem is that these rankings measure the wrong thing.

While glad the media is interested in the charitable sector, these rankings “are invariably skewed to having a heavy emphasis on the cost side of business,” he says, adding that they “perpetuate the belief that ensuring adequate resources to deliver quality programs is a bad thing.”

What MacDonald objects to is how the highest rankings are given to groups that spend the least on things like staff salaries, administration, communications and fundraising. The ones that need to spend more to deliver their programs end up with lower scores.

He agrees that charities need to be careful with donated dollars. But, he says, this way of measuring charity effectiveness is “a poor reflection” of the real worth of non-profit organizations.

“One size doesn’t fit all,” he states. “The issues the different groups address are complex. It’s hard to compare a group that digs wells in Ghana with an organization that treats people with AIDS in Vancouver.”

What MacDonald would rather see measured is impact—what effect has the charity has on the lives of people it is trying to help? And if it costs more to help someone beat an addiction or escape poverty to do it, that should be money well spent.

“If you want real impact, you need to have real investment,” he says. “It’s hard for groups to achieve life-changing outcomes if they can only invest a little.”

In addition to affecting donor behaviour, MacDonald also is critical of how these rankings promote the idea that “charity costs nothing.” 

He is also concerned about the effect on charities themselves. The rankings, he says, have created what he calls “a race to the bottom” as groups try to out-do each other and get higher scores by touting lower overheads.

MacDonald knows the rankings won't stop. But what he would like to see is the media doing a better job of putting charity effectiveness in context. 

He would also like to see charities decline to participate in the ranking process, or refuse to do any publicity if they get a good ranking. 

“We need to stop defining ourselves according to someone else’s playing field,” he says of Canada's non-profit sector. “We need to re-frame the narrative about the sector so we talk more about impact, not just about costs.”

As someone who has worked in the non-profit sector for most of my career, what MacDonald says rings true for me. 

The truth is that doing good well costs money. Groups need well-trained staff, up-to-date technology, great accounting and skilled oversight to ensure donations are used effectively and for their intended purposes.

It also costs money to raise money. If nobody needed to be asked to make a donation, it would be easy. But that's not the way it works. Non-profits need to find creative, personal and innovative ways to break through the noise to catch the attention of donors--who are more and more fickle with their giving.

So as you prepare for your year-end giving, the best advice is always to start early and do your own research. Then, once you have chosen a charity, stick with it—that way you will always know how your donations are being used.

But if you have waited to the last moment, don’t just rely on the rankings. If you can, take a bit more time to find the one that gets the best results.

For additional info on this topic, see Bragging about program-to-admin ratios is a destructive practice that needs to die from the Nonprofit With Balls blog.

Of Passenger Trains and News in Print

Earlier I wrote about how the future of print was like the future of passenger trains.

In that post I noted that asking about the future of print today is like someone in the 1970s asking about the future of passenger trains.

That, I said, was the wrong question.

A better question back then, when travel by train was declining, was: “What’s the future of transportation?”

That was a better question because passenger trains would cease to be the main way people in North America got around.

As we all know, airplanes won that battle.

Passenger trains still exist today. In a few places, where there is a large population base and short distances, they make sense.

But for the majority of people, they are not the main way to travel long distances.

Similarly, we shouldn’t be asking about the future of news on print.

Rather, we should ask about the future of communication—print, like passenger trains, will not be the main way most people communicate in the future.

That was my previous post. So what’s the new connection between print and passenger trains?

Like passenger trains, I believe print will still exist in the future. 

But also like passenger trains, it will play a niche role.

But if news in print is going to exist, it will not pay its own way. 

It will need to be subsidized—just like passenger trains.

A case in point is the trip The Canadian, VIA Rail’s signature long-distance train from Toronto to Vancouver.

It’s a great way to travel—if you have the time and money.

A one-way trip from Toronto the west coast costs $448 in coach, sitting up all the way for three days. (It costs $315 to fly that route in a few hours.)

Even then, the train doesn’t pay its own way.

In 2013, the Canadian government provided a subsidy of $475 per passenger on the long-distance train.

It’s not much different in the U.S.

Outside of the northeast corridor, where fast trains that travel short distances between large cities can earn their keep, long-distance passenger trains lose money.

According to one source, the average subsidy per rider from New York to Los Angeles is over $1,000.

The estimated round trip subsidy per passenger for a Denver-Chicago trip is $650.

So: What does this have to with news on print?

Just like how passenger trains haven’t gone away, there will always be a role for news in print.

But just like passenger trains, news on print won’t pay its own way. It will need to be subsidized.

To be honest, news in print in newspapers and magazines has always been “subsidized.” 

It’s called advertising.

Circulation alone has never paid the bills for newspapers. At best, it paid for paper and printing.

But the journalism? That was paid for by advertising.

But now that advertising in newspapers is in serious decline, that “subsidy” is under threat.

What will replace it? That’s the big question. 

A few are calling on the government to step in—a uniquely Canadian response.

Some are suggesting that newspapers become non-profits, like NPR in the U.S. where donors can get a tax receipt for their donation.

A few newspapers are trying to build new relationships with readers, to see if they can attract enough people to keep going on circulation revenue alone (whether in print or online).

Whatever happens, I think some news in print will continue.

But like for passenger trains, some sort of subsidy will be required to keep it going.

Either that, or that particular way of sharing information train will leave the station for the last time.

P.S. I am aware that airplane and car travel also is subsidized by the government in various ways—we don’t pay tolls to travel on the roads, for example. So maybe subsidizing information that contributes to the good of society wouldn’t be such a bad thing. 

Pay to Play, or Give Us Money and We Don't Break Your Legs

I had a pleasant conversation with the ad guy from a radio station the other day.

We talked about the state of the industry (doing great, he says), and how things are going at my non-profit.

Eventually, the discussion got around to advertising, and whether we would be buying any anytime soon.

We might, I told him. We are researching possibilities for next year. We might want to buy some ads.

Just another typical conversation with an ad guy—right?

Well, it was until he left.

That’s when he suggested that future news coverage of my agency might be dependent on us buying advertising.

“It costs a lot to keep a radio station on the air,” he said.

Now, to be fair, he never actually threatened that the news department would stop running stories about my agency if I didn’t buy ads.

But he definitely left the implication hanging in the air.

At least he wasn’t as bold as an ad guy from a church publication a few years ago.

In an e-mail, he detailed how many stories his publication had carried about my organization, and how much it would have cost me to buy that space.

“I certainly do not wish to threaten you with negative consequences,” he said at the end of his e-mail—doing exactly that.

But, he went on to say, “with all relationships there are expectations and demands, giving and taking.

“Would you be pleased with our relationship if you paid for 50+ ads over five years and in return we ran only a 200-word briefly noted article?”

I replied by noting that while it was true we got valuable space, the publication didn’t have to pay the salary of my communications officer who wrote the stories, or the costs of sending her to Africa and across Canada to get the stories, or the salaries of those who assisted her in writing the reports.

It was a fair exchange, in other words—we gave them news they didn't have to pay for or write or even collect on their own.

If anything, we probably paid more for the privilege of being in his publication than they gave us in news space.

Now, I understand where the two ad guys are coming from. It’s a very challenging media environment these days.

And I am not unsympathetic to their plight. Print publications, in particular, are dying.

But pay to play by buying ads? That seems to be pushing a new edge for me, at least.

To be clear, I’m not talking about sponsored content. That’s space paid for by an advertiser that is clearly marked as having been purchased.

This is more along the lines of extortion: Pay up and we don’t break your legs.

It’s probably not the last time this will come up. As the media grows more desperate for revenue, I’m sure I will get more opportunities to pay to see my content published.

And threats if I don’t.

(Anyone else have experiences like these?)

I Am No Longer A Subscriber to the Winnipeg Free Press. (I'm a Member)

I’m no longer a subscriber to the Winnipeg Free Press.

No, I didn’t cancel my subscription. My daily (printed) newspaper still comes to my house every day.

Instead of being a subscriber, I’m a member.

That’s what editor Paul Samyn told me, and all the other former subscribers, in a special column in June.

“For the past 144 years, we have looked at our readers as customers,” he wrote.

“But it’s time to see those who invest their time and their dime to read the Free Press as much more than that. We need to treat them as members, because paying to read the Free Press — on a smartphone, desktop, tablet or in print — means you are part of something much bigger than the word 'customer' can capture.”

I was reminded of my changed status today by another note from Paul in the Nov. 5 edition of the Free Press.

In it, Samyn describes the difference between a subscriber and a member.

“At one level, both relationships involve an exchange of money for access to the stories we deliver in print and online,” he writes.

“But when someone is a member, there is a deeper attachment that involves a sense of belonging.”

The Free Press, he admits, hasn’t done a very good job making subscribers—er, members—feel that sense of belonging.

“Unfortunately, we haven’t always done enough to make clear how important the community of readers is to us,” he says.

“For too long, the stories we produced were the end product of our business, not the start of something deeper. If we are going to thrive in this new media environment . . . that has to change. And that change starts now.” 

And what is driving that change? 

Money.

Says Samyn: “Our business model has always depended on revenue from readers, but never more so than today; the dollars that once flowed from advertising have become digital dimes online and mere pennies on mobile.”

Future growth, he says, will come “from the slow but steady uptick in people now paying to read us online.”

The challenge, he adds, is that there is so much information available for free—why pay?

That’s where membership comes in.

According to Samyn, we should want to pay to be members because of the important role the Free Press plays in the community; because we realize quality journalism costs something; and because we “realize a strong community needs a dependable source of focused, independent journalism.”

A few thoughts on Samyn’s comments.

First, I agree with Samyn. Good journalism is important, and someone should pay for it.

Second, the idea that readers are most important to newspapers (or other media) is a new view of that world.

Until now, advertising was the name of the game. That’s how newspapers made their money. Circulation, at best, only managed to pay for the paper and ink.

True, readers and viewers counted insofar as the larger the number, the more they could charge for ads.

But we were otherwise mostly irrelevant to the media experience.

This was something John Stackhouse noted in his book Mass Disruption: Thirty Years on the Frontlines of the Media Revolution.

In the book, he noted that the downturn in advertising has put power into the hands of media consumers—something that not all journalists welcome.

Until now, the media believed that it—not readers, viewers and listeners—should decide what was newsworthy.

What they need to deal with, Stackhouse states, is “the fact they no longer controlled the reading experience.”

That's a big change. Before, the ups-and-downs of circulation might not have mattered much.

But it matters a whole lot more now.

Third, while I agree with Samyn, I’m not so sure a younger generation will.

In a world where news is free, why pay for it?

Plus, their interest in the world might not be high enough to keep the Free Press in business.

That’s what I found out when I asked a class of 20 or so university students how many read the Free Press, in print or online.

Only two hands went up.

If that's the future, the Free Press is in trouble.

Finally, this thought. The Free Press is suddenly a lot like the kind of work I do as a fundraiser.

I spend my time trying to think of ways to connect with donors, to make them feel like they belong.

Some in my international NGO sector will disagree, but the business we are really in is the customer service business. Or, as we call it, donor relations.

If donors don't like how we treat them, or they don't feel they are being heard, they will leave and take their money with them.

And then we will go out of business.

This is something Samyn understands.  

He quotes Jeff Jarvis of the Tow-Knight Centre for Entrepreneurial Journalism at City University New York about the role of the journalists in this new modern news ecosystem:

"If our role as journalists is to help communities better organize their knowledge and themselves, then it is apparent that we are in the service business and that we must draw on many tools, including content, and place value on the relationships we build with members of our communities, which will also take many forms. Thus, we are in the relationship business."

And that’s why I am no longer a subscriber to the Free Press.

I’m a member.