Collections are versatile, powerful and simple to create. From a customized course reader to an action-guide for an upcoming service-learning trip, collections illuminate themes, guide inquiry, and provide context for how people around the worls are responding to social challenges.
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Welcome to a curated database of rigorous reporting on responses to social problems.
16,700 stories produced by 9,400 journalists and 2,100 news outlets from 96 countries. The stories cover responses in 196 countries, in 16 languages. This resource is made possible because of a growing movement of journalists who use solutions journalism to illuminate both problems and evidence-based responses to them.
Learn more about the Solutions Story Tracker.
Explore curated stories in a variety of languages from journalists and news outlets around the world who use a solutions journalism lens.
Discover curated content about themes that matter to you, exclusively from the Solutions Story Tracker. Explore collections, resources and more.
The Solutions Story Tracker® is a curated, searchable database of solutions journalism stories — rigorous reporting about responses to social problems. We vet and tag every story in the Story Tracker, which offers an inspiring and useful collection of the thousands of ways people are working to solve problems around the world.
You can learn more about how we source, vet, and tag stories here, as well as how we share them. We also have video tutorials in Spanish and French that show how to use the Solutions Story Tracker to find what you need.
Story collections are curated by our staff or other partners to explore a theme, pattern, or trend via selected solutions stories and external resources. Some story collections focus on an in-depth exploration of a topic with solutions journalism; others highlight journalists and how they report on topics. Certain story collections include discussion questions and notes, so that educators and community discussion leaders can lead learners to fully engage with the stories.
The Solutions Story Tracker® is powered by user submissions. We encourage submissions from journalists, as well as from anyone who has an eye for solutions journalism. Click here to submit. (Why submit? So many reasons!)
You can submit a story directly on the Solutions Story Tracker®. You will be prompted to register or log into the Solutions Journalism Network website, if you are already logged in. (It is free to register!) Logging in allows you to track the status of your submissions under My Profile, as well as save your favorite stories, create story collections and story alerts, and access other helpful features of our website.
After you submit a story to us and assign it a topic, it is sent to one of our Solutions Story Tracker team members. Our team member evaluates the story for the four qualities of solutions journalism, and on the basics: The story must come from a news outlet and have a date and a byline. If the story meets our criteria, our team tags it accordingly and adds it to the database. If the story falls short of the mark, our team will include the reason why. We include stories in the Story Tracker that meet our standards of solutions journalism. Inclusion does not mean we support the initiatives, policies, organizations or approaches featured in those stories.
Discover common reasons why a story may miss the mark for inclusion in the Solutions Story Tracker®.
Learn more about the history of the database.
Solutions Journalism Network features these stories in the searchable database making them publicly accessible to anyone who wants to search for rigorous reporting on solutions to social problems. Any story that is added has the potential to make more impact than its original purpose. Added stories are used in journalism trainings, school curricula, research projects, and independent analysis on issue area trends. This now includes artificial intelligence tools, which are applied for educational value to find stories and support story vetting, as well as to extract insights from the stories. SJN has digital products and newsletters that give new life and exposure to the stories meeting people where they are at. Story data also is used to develop innovative tools to reach the general public with solutions journalism as well as some specific research projects requested by researchers. If you have any questions or concerns about our use of story data or added stories, please contact Lita Tirak.
News outlets determine whether all users can access their stories — and some limit the number of stories that anyone can view, or require a subscription. The majority of stories in the database can be accessed for free.
We work with journalists, academic researchers and others who feel that our database will support their research. We are especially interested in research that seeks to develop new insights about solutions journalism and its spread and its impact on social problems. Please complete all sections of the Data Request Form, and we will contact you to discuss your request in greater detail.
We do not fact-check the stories in the Solutions Story Tracker®. We do ensure that each story comes from a credible news source that has its own editorial infrastructure.
We worked with Tara Pixley and Jovelle Tamayo of the Authority Collective, who developed a guide for using equitable visuals. We follow this guide when choosing images for our website.
We welcome your feedback and additional questions. Please use this form to get in touch.