They’re schools staying safe without suspensions community farming erasing food deserts homegrown cleanups of lakes and shores and health centers providing care for those who otherwise couldn’t get it. Those responses are quieter than Australia changing its gun laws but no less relevant to our lives. That’s because every day, people are working to solve those problems, creating results and knowledge we can all benefit from.
We need to equip our neighbors every day with options for solving problems before they’re at code red. We can’t just jump into our Solutionsmobile when a problem hits critical mass. Climate change isn’t just historic wildfires. That’s solutions journalism at its best - building awareness around responses, uncovering insights others can learn from, expanding ideas of what’s possible, and exploring the limitations of those responses.īut gun violence isn’t just mass shootings. People instinctively understood why this approach was important: We can hold our government accountable by showing the problem in vivid detail and by removing excuses for inaction. Both The New York Times and The Washington Post switched into solutions journalism mode. People were focused on the problem and evidence of progress elsewhere. It became the stuff of viral memes and charts. looked outside ourselves and seriously considered how other countries have reduced gun violence.
has been ravaged by grief for the last two weeks, but along the way, the conversation took a turn as the U.S.