Solutions Journalism Toolkit, what I learned:

1. There are five ways to know whether or not a story is solutions journalism, or not. “Stories focus, in depth, on a response to a social/societal problem, examines in detail how the response to a social/societal issue works, focuses on effectiveness and presenting available evidence of results, not good intentions, provides both insight that others can use as well as inspiration, and discusses what’s not working about a specific approach to a social/societal issue.”
2. There are many ways to detect whether or not a story is solutions journalism or not. These different terms include: hero worship, which is a story that glorifies an individual. Silver bullets, these stories talk about a new product in “glowing terms.” Favor for a Friend, which is like a silver bullet story and is said to be “thinly veiled PR.” Think tank journalism, which refers to “journalism that proposes things that don’t yet exist.” Instant activist, which are stories that “offer an emotional plea and then ask for support for a specific cause, as a means to ‘solve’ the issue.” The Afterthought, which is “a paragraph or sound bite at the end of a problem story that gives lip service to efforts at solving it.” And the Heartwarmer, which “often appears at the end of the evening news or on Thanksgiving, in the form of a kid with a lemonade stand. It tells the viewer that the world has good people doing cute things, but doesn’t get to the structural issues that we want solutions journalism to address.”
3. Solutions journalism actually increases user engagement and readership. As stated in the Solutions Journalism Toolkit: “If done well, this approach to storytelling can grab and keep readers’ interest. Solutions stories are more likely to be shared on social media. This is partly because they can make listeners feel powerful, less likely to tune out, and less apathetic or cynical about the problem.”
4. The solutions journalism approach can have many different impacts. These different impact include: “Bring more effective strategies to a community’s attention, delegitimize any excuses for peoples’ inaction, expose an organization to a powerful idea that can transform its impact, change a community’s conversation and official policy and reimagine a status quo.”
5. Conducting interviews for solutions oriented stories: “The traditional news journalist is taught to report on the five W’s: who, what, when, where, why. Obviously these are critical building blocks for any investigation, whether you’re covering a PTA meeting or an airstrike. But when exploring the impact and potential of responses to social problems, it’s critical that journalists move beyond basic reporting and look at some of the nuances of making change,” via the Solutions Journalism Toolkit.
6. There are two important things to always do first when looking to create a solutions story: first, identify a large question or concern with society and then ask yourself, “What’s missing from the current conversation?”
7. There are many ways to seek out a solutions journalism story, which include: “Peer-reviewed academic papers, academic experts, large datasets, people involved in implementation, network of innovators (such as TED Talks), program officers in foundations, your own expertise and holding up a mirror to your own life.” Just to name a few, via the Solutions Journalism Toolkit.
8. Journalism has seen an emphasis on data journalism over the last few years, resulting in some journalist shying away from using data sets to report on stories. However, when journalists do turn to data sets, a major thing to look for is the extreme and negative outliers in the data set. But, solutions journalism offers an alternative approach to data reporting: “…exploring positive deviants, or slices of a dataset that get at the best performers. For example: Which hospital in Texas has the lowest infection rate? … A positive deviant is a signal that something newsworthy could be happening.”
9. There is a specific ways that the Solutions Journalism Toolkit recommends solutions journalism stories to be structured, which include: “Positive deviant,” which highlights a positive outlier in a data set, rather than focusing on a negative one. “Big new idea,” which is a solutions-orientated piece that explores a big, innovative idea. “Experiment in progress” approach, which is the “opportunity to cover an ongoing program that has clear pros and cons. … Compared to the ‘big new idea’ structure, this type of story usually has a bit more data and evidence behind it,” and lastly, the “location transformation” approach.
10. Heros vs. characters: “…solutions journalism is more engaging when stories focus more rich, three-dimensional characters and compelling narrative tension, rather than relying on ‘heroes.'” This concept discusses how to find interview subjects for solutions-oriented stories that are great characters, instead of
    “heros” that are worshiped throughout a story.