If you’re interested in journalism that responds to social issues constructively but critically, don’t miss our training with Solutions Journalism Network (SJN)! Online News Association is generously funding this event. Please invite other reporters and students to join this meetup and RSVP.
SJN supports and connects journalists interested in doing solutions journalism, a genre of media work that involves rigorous reporting about how people are responding to problems.
Dinner will be provided at the event by ONA.
Description of the training: The standard training digs into the fundamentals of solutions journalism, including what it is (and what it isn’t), how it enhances accountability, and how to do it.
The instructors look at solutions journalism as a form of investigative journalism. Reporters dig into the scope of a problem, see who has already responded to this problem, and analyze the associated results.
SJN’s core 2-hour curriculum is a training that they’ve given to thousands of journalists across the country – from local chapters of SPJ and ONA and conferences to over 75 news outlets including the Seattle Times, several NPR affiliates, BBC, and more.
Example of an article: SJN co-founder Tina Rosenberg’s 2001 article on how Brazil effectively eliminated the transmission of HIV/AIDS is a great example of an investigative solutions piece (http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/28/magazine/look-at-brazil.html).
Note from our presenter: If there’s interest/time, we can dig deeper and make it a workshop format where participants come with story ideas and we work through them so they walk away with a reporting plan.
Directions to the UMass Amherst Journalism Department: The best place to park is the parking garage (1 Campus Center Way). Walk through the Campus Center. Go past the bookstore, pass a coffeeshop, and turn right into the Blue Wall (eatery). Walk straight through and out the door and you’ll see the Integrative Learning Center (tall glass building). We’re on the fourth floor. (Just don’t take the elevator directly behind the coffeeshop. That will only take you to the second floor. There is another set of elevators on the “pond side” of the building that go all the way up to the 4th floor. It’s easy to get a little lost, so we encourage everyone to give themselves a few extra minutes.)