Learning Tool: Building a Sustainable Media with Solutions and Constructive Journalism

The series “Building a Sustainable Media with Solutions and Constructive Journalism” is designed to help you better understand the concepts and strategies your newsroom can use to turn this approach into a profitable model. You will discover real-life success stories from newsrooms across Europe, along with tips and strategies to help you integrate solutions journalism into your editorial workflow.

As part of the series, five digital resources were created:

First Handbook “Creating an Editorial Cultural Shift” – In the first resource, we focus on helping media managers and editors make solutions journalism an essential part of their newsroom culture.

Second Handbook “Attracting Subscribers with a Different Editorial Approach” – In the second installment we explore how newsroom’s editorial product innovations have enhanced reader engagement with and attracted financial support for their media outlets.

Third Handbook “Sponsorships, Advertising and Special Projects Opportunities” – In the third installment we look at how media outlets can leverage their editorial focus on solutions journalism to generate revenue from corporate stakeholders interested in making their brands more visible. This is one of the more ethically thorny propositions to explore, requiring media companies to be strict in maintaining the editorial work’s independence from commercial teams’ objectives.

Fourth Handbook “Securing Institutional Funding” – In the fourth resource we explore how newsrooms can secure public or philanthropic funding for their coverage of solutions. Building on the experiments led by the Solutions Journalism Network around revenue, we brought in two experts who shared their expertise in raising money for journalism organizations.

Fifth Handbook “Strategies and Tools to Strengthen Solutions Journalism” – In this last resource of the series we explore how newsrooms can use a range of strategies and tools to strengthen their practice of solutions journalism and grow its visibility to attract a range of potential financial backers.

These resources are part of the “SoJo Europe” project, implemented by Transitions (Czech Republic), Journalismfund Europe (Belgium), the Constructive Institute (Denmark), and The South East European Network for Professionalization of Media (SEENPM) with financial support from the European Commission (Creative Europe Media).