Solution Journalism: How to engage your audience ?
On April 14–15, the European IQ Media Conference on “Innovation in the Media” was organized by the Group Nice-Matin and the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens in Greece. A workshop was led by Sophie Casals (Editorial Project Manager at Nice-Matin) and was titled : Solution Journalism: How to engage your audience ?
💡 Solution journalism is defined as reporting on how people are trying to solve problems and what can be learned from their successes and failures.
Emerging in the United States almost 25 years ago, it aims to correct a “chronic imbalance in journalism”: only reporting on what goes wrong.
“This approach addresses current challenges for the media, such as news avoidance, anxiety, information overload (infobesity), and public mistrust”, explained Sophie Casals.
The goal is not just to identify problems, but crucially to explore practical responses and their effectiveness.
Many international media outlets and organizations are interested in this approach, such as The Guardian (“The upside”), the BBC (“Future planet”), the Solution Journalism Network, and the Constructive Institute.
👏 Why Nice-Matin adopted Solution journalism?
Nice-Matin adopted solution journalism in 2015 as part of a strategy to encourage readers to pay for information. A pillar of the subscriber offer for Nice-Matin and Var-matin.
The regional media has a small dedicated team (2 reporters, 1 video reporter) to produce long formats including stories, videos, infographics, and data.
A central element of Nice-Matin’s approach is a strong audience engagement.
Subscribers are involved throughout the editorial process:
- Before a news series is published, subscribers vote online to choose one of three topics selected in the editorial conference. This voting has often led to surprises, with readers’ choices sometimes being unexpected for the journalists.
- During publication, the newspaper offers engaging formats like quizzes and especially participatory investigations (crowdsourcing), inviting the audience to submit ideas or data on a given problem. Examples include calls for ideas to protect the ocean or contributions on city noise or cycling on the French Riviera.
- Subscribers have access to the behind-the-scenes of reports for more transparency and can meet journalists at events. Debates are also organized after the publication of certain series.
Nice-Matin has covered about fifty topics in “Solutions” series, addressing various issues such as ocean protection, welcoming migrants, future tourism on the French Riviera, the digital divide, food waste, finding housing, or the coexistence between humans and wolves.
🤔 What is a solution story ?
A solution story must meet key criteria:
- Identify a clear problem backed by data.
- Present human responses to the problem (without necessarily heroes).
- Provide evidence of results, focusing on the effectiveness of the response and not just the intentions.
- Clearly highlight limitations to avoid being an advertorial or advocacy.
- Explore the causes of the problem and detail how the solution works (or fails).
Solution journalism adds a crucial question to the traditional 5 Ws (Who, What, When, Where, Why): “And now, what do we do and how?”.
The suggested narrative format for a solution story generally includes presenting the problem, the solution and how it works, initial results, limitations, and how to go further.
💪 What is the impact ?
The observed impact for Nice-Matin includes, beyond subscriber numbers and views:
- A positive image of the media.
- A close link with the community.
- An improvement in the quality of comments on publications.
- A high rate of sharing on social networks.
✍️ Nice-Matin
📸 Franck Fernandes (Nice-Matin)
