Solutions Journalism – Less fake news and more committed action

Alfredo: Well, I am very pleased to be here with you. Thank you very much for the invitation to this space. From our perspective, solutions journalism is based more on proposals than on news or informative facts. Every day we are subject to listening to what is happening in the world, while the next one of solutions has more to do with what we are doing for the world.

Solutions Journalism focuses more on a propositional approach, more of an action-oriented approach, rather than simply being a witness or a spectator to what is going on.

We, at Colaborativo are a community called the Sustainable Development Action Network, where our focus starts with promoting the Sustainable Development Goals so that everyone in the entrepreneurship ecosystem can learn about the 2030 agenda. But not just knowing about it, but how they can take action to be able to improve things for everyone. That’s where the enabling part of solutions comes from. How we can all contribute to this great proposal that is the 2030 Agenda to be able to build a solution all together.

So, it has a lot to do with this invitation to take action and to be able to show the opportunities and options available so that everyone, from their own position and perspective, can take action and contribute to the improvement of society and genuinely achieve sustainable development. And it is important to clarify that it is not only about giving things, about the good things or the nice things. Rosa touched on it. It is about sharing content and information that is really functional and that is not only of interest, but that really invites people to act. And how with that information and with that content they can do something relevant.

Let me give you an example, the actions of calls and opportunities for entrepreneurs is something that we consider extremely relevant for the entire ecosystem to know that there are many organizations around the world that are looking for entrepreneurs who have the firm goal of wanting to make their community a better place to live. And one of the ways that we can make everyone aware of this is through solutions, letting them know about these opportunities that are available, how they can get involved and how that actually results in solving a problem for them. 

Marisela: I would define solutions journalism as that in which the best practices of journalism are used to tell the stories of the proposals that are being generated from different trenches to solve the world’s major problems and also the solutions that are improving people’s lives at the local level. This, of course, does not mean that solutions journalism paints a rosy world where everything is being solved and everything is happy.

It is about applying the journalist’s resources, such as in-depth interviews, documentary research with rectified sources, the approach in the field or directly with all the social actors that coexist around a problem to tell the story of that problem and the solutions that are currently being proposed for it, in order to make that situation known as objectively as possible to the public that will consume that content.

It is very important to emphasize that this type of journalistic activity does not seek to show the solutions that are emerging as absolute truths. Rather, the aim is to show the different angles of a problem, the different alternatives that are emerging to solve it and the results of these, in order to show a more complete picture of what is motivating these solutions. 

Federico: It is a trend that has been gaining strength and popularity in recent years, especially with the new generations.

It is journalism that tries to move away from those desperate attempts that treat journalistic content as a commodity and therefore, with the need to sell it and place it in the market, they resort to strategies such as “clickbait”. Like breaking news. Like paranoia.

But above all, it is committed journalism. It is a journalism that tries to focus on the social agents that are working on the solutions to the problems of the communities and humanity today, instead of problematizing or just giving their two-cents and moving on. Here in Argentina we say that journalism that criticizes and does not commit itself to change or to reality. So, well, this is the kind of journalism we also want to promote and for some years we have been trying to practice in our media and in our informative proposals.  Marisela: I think there are two main reasons to encourage solutions journalism. The first is linked to one of the main objectives we have at disruptivo.tv, which is inspiration.

This possibility offered by solutions journalism is very valuable to inspire more people to trust in their talent, in their potential as agents of change, to encourage them to take the necessary steps to implement the solutions they have in mind and turn them into reality.

Many times, when we, as a journalistic medium or as a voice on the Internet, launch a content to this great network, we do not imagine that on the other side there may be a person who needed to hear exactly that message or see the story of someone who is solving a problem with all its pros and cons. Because that’s when the magic happens. You never know when these stories might make someone decide to take a step to explore their talent and apply themselves to improve the world.

The second reason is that putting the information objectively and punctually for these solutions that are already being proposed, that are already being tested, allows other people to know which ones have given good results. Also which ones did not work out as expected. And this is something that can save new ideas a long way, because they no longer have to start from scratch. And when we talk about solutions to urgent problems such as inequality or climate emergency, we know that there is no time to lose and if we have a track record of solutions, we can move forward with a more accurate step to achieve the real positive impact we are looking for. 

Federico: If we really want a paradigm shift, we also have to rethink the ways in which we communicate, the way in which we do journalism and generate the stories that shape reality.

Because the media also have to take charge of the role they played in these last decades and especially in the second half of the 20th century, where social and economic inequality deepened, where pollution deepened and where the media also played a preponderant role in the construction of that reality.

Let’s say, today the construction of another reality is at stake and therefore other perspectives are needed regarding the ways of communicating and doing journalism. 

Alfredo: It is extremely important because solutions journalism seeks to give a voice to those who typically have not been heard in the traditional media. And it is not only important to be able to listen to all voices, but to be able to listen to those who have something to propose, not only the voices that complain or are angry, because things are not the way people want them to be, but those who have genuine proposals of how things could be, proposals, of how we can change.

And then generating these spaces for people with these ideas to be heard is practically social justice. These spaces have to exist so that all voices can be heard and once we have all the perspectives, we can make better decisions.

For example, what we are looking for is with our portfolio of entrepreneurs. Colaborativo started as an investment fund accelerator and that is what I find most fulfilling. And we focus on working with entrepreneurs who use technology to achieve sustainable development and do it in a very disruptive way. But they are people who typically had not been heard in the conventional media and we give them that space so they can share all these advances they are achieving, solving the problems they have within their regions and programs, sometimes so recurrent and so important as financial inclusion, access to quality education and health, access to basic services or simply improving the access that all people can have and other opportunities that those of us who live in the city have.

So, seeking to create a level playing field is one of the most important things we are looking for. And if it weren’t for these types of spaces, these voices would not be heard. One of the objectives is to inspire other people to do the same. It doesn’t mean that these voices are always going to have the solution or that they are always going to be right, but we genuinely want to generate a conversation. We want there to be a debate about it then, if that’s the path, what other path can we take?

The space for dialogue of this type of journalism. I think it is the most enriching thing and it is the result that we all want, to generate a conversation around the issues that we are, that we are proposing and from that we can ideally reach a consensus and be able to continue advancing as a society.

Federico: At Gama Media we set out to focus through our content proposals on some verticals that cut across the Sustainable Development Goals, mainly ecology, climate change, social inclusion and gender equality. Through two of our main products, one is NOTIFY, which is a multiplatform news program in which we try to give a voice to specialists from the Academy of Science, activists and social actors who are promoting solutions and projects to these issues. 

And above all, we give a lot of space to impact entrepreneurs and we also have a program called GRL PWR in co-production with a festival that takes place here in our country, which focuses on staging and amplifying the voices and artistic manifestations of women that are usually overlapped by an industry such as the music industry, which also has a lot to be built and a lot to, to, to rethink. And well, through this musical proposal it also allowed us to convey a lot of claims and demands from organizations and professionals who are working to promote gender equality, equal opportunities in different areas, not only in the cultural sphere, but also in private institutions, in companies. So, well, today it has become the only program with a gender perspective that is broadcast daily from Monday to Friday on a radio station in Argentina. Now, unlike other media, it is not about a color note, it is not about complying with a quota of contents, it is not about putting a gender editor to change the image of our media, but to give it a place within the context, let’s say. 

On the other hand, we also realized that we had the possibility of helping, concretely in the positioning of impact ventures that need big campaigns and great strength and a great advertising force to be able to install their products and services and to be able to convince consumers to adopt responsible consumption.

We saw an opportunity because we also detected that there was a big gap between the possibilities of entrepreneurs and the proposals of the media. So we set up a platform called Banco de Tiempo, which offers financing products for entrepreneurs, so that they can carry out their advertising campaigns and that these advertising campaigns generate impact, which translates into sales of their products and services and therefore, that these ventures can also survive the famous and dreaded valley of death and become sustainable ventures in financial terms, in economic terms. Because we also began to detect that the lack of advertising planning and the lack of inclusion of advertising budgets had to do precisely with financing difficulties.

With Banco de Tiempo’s platform, we offer a solution in terms of financing and advertising planning at the service of impact ventures. In this crusade for a paradigm shift to responsible consumption.

Marisela: A good example of solutions journalism. I think it is the site Noticias positivas. This site emerged several years ago. It seems to me that it was in 2003, as an independent media that touched on topics that today are much more popular than they were then, such as sustainability and the concept of corporate social responsibility. One of the things that strikes me most about this media is that it was one of the first to receive corporate certification. For us, this shows the high commitment they have not only in their journalistic work, but also in their work as a company to generate a triple impact in our world, in our society. And that is very important to me.

Also, a couple of years ago, Noticias Positivas launched the concept of regenerative journalism, which would be like the evolution of solutions journalism.

At that time they said that it is no longer enough to talk about solutions. We have to go further and talk about how those solutions, when integrated into collective systems and when we all get involved as a society to promote them, are the key to transforming the way in which we consume our resources and our information today and how we see the world. So it seems to me that this is a work that has been going on for several years, that is inspiring and helps us to see beyond the solutions. So I think that is a very important reference for me.

Alfredo: There are some incredible initiatives. I am going to share a couple in which we are involved beyond what we already operate in the portal. As I was telling you, it is a platform that seeks to inform and share information about the sustainable development of the entrepreneurial ecosystem and a little bit of entrepreneurship, technology and innovation and proposals on how we can improve things. All the content is created and curated by the community of entrepreneurs and investors themselves. So it’s very, very light and very much content that invites to generate conversation and to be able to take action.

However, outside of what we do within the community portal, last year we got involved along with more than 70 organizations in the ecosystem that as a result of the COVID 19 pandemic, we realized that entrepreneurs were having a lot of problems to be able to stay in business because of the hills that were happening and all the circumstances. So we joined many organizations of the ecosystem to look for a common front and how to support and give support to all these entrepreneurs that were part of our portfolios or that were part of the ecosystem. And the truth is, it was a very good experience because for the first time we were able to come together in a very organic way. The main organizations that support entrepreneurship and derived from this support that we gave, we were able to impact more than 500 entrepreneurs through webinars, support programs that we were operating, information and support one1 with them.

Through training, we realized that it was time to join forces, because if we did not do so, we would simply not be able to move forward as an ecosystem. And it was from there that the Red de Impacto LATAM was formed, which is already a much more structured effort, where we find all those support organizations such as incubators, accelerators, investment funds, consulting firms, media, all those organizations that are involved in providing support and offering some service to impact entrepreneurs or social entrepreneurship. We meet under the same roof mainly to be able to share experiences, but also to be able to plan the next steps of the ecosystem towards where we want to go. How we can take advantage of the efforts we have already made in the past so that we don’t have to duplicate efforts and we can continue, keep moving forward, which is what happened to us a lot in the ecosystem. And all of this has been thanks to the content of the communication that we are generating. Right now the biggest project we have within the impact network is the mapping of organizations beyond these first blessed first block of organizations that we joined. We know that there are many more organizations at the local level that are operating, that are doing their best every day to support impact entrepreneurs and we want to reach them. 

We want to reach them through content, training, we want to help them to become stronger, to become institutionalized, and mainly to work together with the rest of the ecosystem. So that we can all become stronger together. So, this mapping seeks to be able to find and identify all these actors, not only the most relevant ones, but all those who are part of it without leaving anyone behind. And with this information, we are able to build a toolbox on good support practices, to be able to generate a repository of all the research, studies, all these good practices that we have in the ecosystem so that they are available to everyone. And this is because it already has to do with how I can start working together with other organizations. Not many of them have specific projects that derive from projects they have with multilateral organizations that we could work together, but we do not do it today because we do not know what our neighbors are doing. So the idea is to be able to have that visibility and to be able to foster collaboration and alliances among all the members of the ecosystem.

So this is one of the largest systems projects we have in the collaborative system, which we are fortunate to share with more than 100 organizations that are already part of it, and we have the privilege of having someone who can lead all this part of market telecommunications within the network. So it has been an incredible experience and we want this initiative to be replicated and to be derived for the coming years. We need many more people to continue promoting this type of activism, of journalism, of solutions where we seek to take action, where we seek that more people can find options and opportunities to move forward and that together we can build that reality that we dream of so much.