Today's trust tip: Tell your audience what your focus on solutions stories means

Hi there. Lynn here.

I recently attended a summit organized by the Solutions Journalism Network. I met a lot of new journalists and learned about their focus and commitment to telling solution-based stories. What was especially exciting for me, though, was how often I saw opportunities for journalists to build trust through their solutions reporting. 

I guess it shouldn’t have been that surprising since the SJN mission involves being of better service to communities — and building trust:

"We help reporters, producers, and editors bring the same attention and rigor to stories about responses to problems as they do to the problems themselves. Doing so, we believe, can elevate public discourse, spur citizen agency, and reduce polarization. It can strengthen democracy. When added to the mix, it improves the overall quality and impact of journalism."

I found myself often sharing and discussing some of the foundational goals of Trusting News:

• Journalists should be transparent about their reporting process and decision making.
• Journalists should engage with the public and seek feedback from them.
• Journalists should talk publicly about their mission, values and who they are.

The SJN summit was set up as an unconference, which meant our days were mainly spent in small group conversations on topics pitched and selected by attendees. One of the first conversations I joined focused on the issue of signposting. 

The question discussed was whether or not journalists should be adding labels to solutions journalism stories.

At Trusting News, we’ve written about this before in a previous Trust Tip and in this Medium post. 

In that newsletter edition, we highlighted our work with The Hechinger Report. The news organization experimented with inserting clear solutions language into a newsletter. Even better, they did an A/B test, with half the newsletter list getting a traditional approach and half getting the language shown below. 

The click-through rate was 15% higher on the version that included the solutions language. (We're eager to do more of this kind of testing. Reply to this email if you want to chat!) 

What we learned through that small experiment and other work is that if you want a solutions approach to be part of the story of your journalism, you need to actually tell that story.

Here are three recommendations from us about how to do that. (You can also find these recommendations in a printable handout here.)

1. Mention the solutions frame on social media and in newsletters
2. Point out the solutions focus on the story page
3. Have a landing page for solutions work

Today, I would like to add the some additional recommendations and tips on how signposting solution stories could help you build trust with your audience:

1. Adding a “solutions” or “solutions journalism” label isn’t all it takes. A label can be great for internal tracking and keeping the stories organized and easy to find. But a label alone isn't going to automatically signal to your users that you care about covering solutions in the community. Consider adding an explanation about what solutions stories are and why you focus on them. Tie that focus back to your mission and values (and maybe even your commitment to your community).
2. Consider adding boxes inside stories that explain briefly what the solution is, why it’s working and how it could be duplicated. You can also use a box like this to explain why you report on solutions stories (remember to tie it back to your mission and values).
3. Ask for feedback from your audience. If you are highlighting a solution, ask your audience what other solutions they have seen or heard about. If your story is highlighting a problem, use the story as an opportunity to ask your users if they know of or wonder about a potential solution. While doing this, you could again highlight your commitment to covering solutions.
4. Consider adding reporter mission statements to stories. One way to show your commitment to solutions stories is to highlight a reporter's focus on them. If a reporter is focused on finding solutions to problems, have them explain that and include that explanation in the stories they produce.

The purpose of all of these recommendations and tips is to make sure you are articulating your focus on solutions and making it clear when a story is highlighting a solution.

As we have said so many times, a user is unlikely to give you credit for something unless you tell them what you are trying to accomplish. It’s important to be clear about your goals and mission. This is especially true if you want credit for finding solutions and not just focusing on problems. 

With all of this, it’s important to say, you should only publicly make a commitment to something if it truly is part of your mission, goals or values. When you talk publicly about a commitment to producing solutions stories or anything else, you are now on the record and should expect to be held accountable for that commitment. Don't let that accountability scare you from going on the record. But, you should keep that in mind as you write about your commitment to the work. 

Have you gone on the record about your commitment to producing solutions stories? If so, I’d love to see how you’ve done it. Send me an email: Lynn@TrustingNews.org.
 

Have any examples to share? 

Trusting News aims to demystify trust in news and empower journalists to take responsibility for actively demonstrating credibility and earning trust. It is a project of the Reynolds Journalism Institute and the American Press Institute.