how does the news make you feel angry
resigned depressed I want you to
remember that feeling because you’ll see
a headline from these are just some
recent ones about war violence natural
disasters we’re more likely to think of
a story as newsworthy if it’s about
something that’s gone wrong a problem
rather than something that’s gone right
a journalist’s job is to shed light on
what is happening in the world to tear
audience what we think they need to know
and we tend to gravitate more towards
those big dramatic problems what have I
told you there are journalists all over
the world
approaching the news in a different way
and I’m one of them we are still
thinking about problems they’re actually
really really key it’s what we do but
rather than being interested in the
problem itself we’re much more
interested in the solution to that
problem because we practice solutions
journalism and I’m here to explain to
you why it matters so why am I here to
talk to you about this why have I come
all the way to crack off from London to
talk to you about solutions journalism
well as I hope to explain to you I think
it’s really important and that’s partly
because solutions themselves are really
important you can think about all human
progress as the solution to problems the
wheel is was a solution for mobility
issues votes for women social injustice
the Internet access to information all
made humanity better by solving problems
but why why is it me here well my career
path has been a little bit like that
path through journalism from news about
problems to news about solutions that I
just talked about for about six years
I mostly work for BBC Radio 4’s Today
program which is one of the biggest and
most influential news program
in the UK it’s what the Prime Minister
listens to every morning and it was a
brilliant grounding in journalism in
which I covered earthquakes terror
attacks driscoll scandal and as proud as
I was to work for something that held
such an important place in the British
psyche I am much much more proud of the
work I do now because towards the end of
2016 I heard about what was the BBC at
the time something new yep solutions
journalism and I jumped at the chance to
change the way I was thinking about my
work and so I joined shortly after its
launch a BBC World Service program
called world hacks we search for
solutions to some of the world’s
trickiest problems and then we meet the
people behind the solutions to see how
well they actually work and we’re at the
forefront of the BBC’s solutions
journalism coverage I now present the
programme and I also report in and one
of the senior producers I’ll go into
more detail about what we do and what we
think we bring to Solutions journalism
later but first of all I want to go back
to what solutions journalism is well
first of all let’s actually start
talking about what it isn’t firstly
we’re not providing solutions ourselves
with our journalism we’re not trying to
solve problems we’re just reporting on
those attempts it’s also an easy to fall
into is thinking that if something is
just good news or happy story its
solutions journalist and it’s not I
quite often get pitches from someone
with something that’s a positive news
story thinking that I want to cover it
and fairly quickly I’ll have to say no
so what is it well obviously we are
interested in solutions in something
that solving a problem not being that is
kind of a deal breaker for solutions
journalism but we don’t just blindly
report on a solution because we
still journalists and our job is to ask
questions so we would ask questions like
is the solution working what’s the
evidence why is it working why is this
particular approach better than
something else why was this a problem
that needed solving I could go on and in
this way I think we don’t move quite
similar to what Ted and TEDx events like
this and others around the world are
trying to do this is a fantastic forum
for brilliant people to present their
ideas and many of those ideas will be
about how to make the world a better
place
solutions where solutions journalism can
help is to take that out that idea and
spend a bit of time going deeper for me
a good piece of solutions journalism
will identify solution explain why I
should care about the problem that it’s
solving and then spend most of its time
really probing and interrogating that
solution and that’s what we try to do on
world hacks we are a 23 minute weekly
radio program on the BBC World Service
and we also have a podcast called people
fixing the world and a really really
important part of what we do are digital
videos these are short films that we
make about all of our stories we publish
them on the BBC news website and on
social media we want as many people as
possible to see and hear our journalism
and so we try and get it out there in as
many ways as possible we also really
want to reach a younger audience I’ll
explain why later
and we know they live online so we want
to as well and our videos regularly get
millions of views on Facebook alone our
most watched is at the moment on 44
million and our radio program has access
to world service English is audience of
75 million listeners now ours of course
is just one approach to solutions
journalism there are many people across
the BBC and across the world working in
different media with
approach we very much joined rather than
started a movement but this is an
example of how we do it
this is a road safety campaign that is
focused on getting matatu passengers to
speak directly to the driver in case of
any poor driving on the road
drunk driving over speeding overlapping
poor visibility bad roads we did a
sticker because we were looking for an
easy approach we wanted something that
would be easy to put inside a vehicle
the image would clearly communicate what
could happen in an accident and the
message would clearly communicate what
action you could do to keep yourself
safe so here we’ve got a problem a big
one road traffic deaths in one of the
places in the world Kenya where that’s
most a problem we’ve explained the
solution an initiative called sucia puts
stickers in the back of buses called
maturities which encourage passengers to
speak to their driver if they’re worried
about their driving and later in the
video we’ve shown that there’s evidence
that it works
our commissioning process a world hacks
is tough it takes a lot of convincing
for us to say yes to doing a story where
the BBC there’s a responsibility that
comes with that because many people
trust us but I’m about to play you
another one that we did say yes to this
is from a trip to Toronto in Canada that
I did last December it’s about how
improv classes are helping people who
have anxiety and you’re about to hear a
clip from the radio program we made
about this and this is one of the improv
exercises that I joined in with so in
this exercise I’m with a partner maja
and we take it in turns to say one and
then bajas says blah and then I say blue
and we kind of carry on going and there
are there are actions too it’s actually
really hard and in those moments where
you hear me and and maja laughing that’s
that’s when we messed up that was when
it was most fun
when when something’s done incorrectly
you find that moment of joy and laughter
in connection which is hey look at us
we’re failing Cameron says that failures
and mistakes are going to happen in life
the only thing you can change is how
quickly you forgive yourself for them
the process that we use to decide this
story when summer is the same that we
use for any story and the way that I
think about it is I asked myself six
questions firstly obviously it’s
something solving a problem and this
clearly is anxiety is the problem it’s
something that 264 million people around
the world have to deal with and improv
is helping some people do that secondly
is its innovative and by that I mean is
the way the problem is being solved
surprising different interesting in
itself there will be solutions we don’t
cover because they are just a bit boring
or an exciting it could be just putting
a lot of money into something there’s
only so much you can say about that but
with this yes if someone has anxieties
the extent that they need to seek
treatment you would expect them to see a
therapist or take medication improv is
obviously something a bit out of the
ordinary I like to think of it like does
it make me go huh does it surprise me
and this one did next we’re still in the
news game so the solution has to be new
in some way either the people recovering
have to be the first people to have been
doing this or to add something new to
the work and in leastly something new to
the audience which ties into my fourth
criteria which is how much coverage has
this solution had already ideally we
want world hacks to be the first place
that someone is finding out about this
solution the class we visited in Toronto
wasn’t actually the first-ever
improv franchisee class improv has being
used in an informal way for for a while
to help people with anxiety a small
number of therapists mites and patients
took
companies will quite often send
employees to an improv class before a
big speech but the comedy with comedy
school we visited in Toronto is one of
the first to formally and specifically
design a course for those suffering from
anxiety and there have been a few online
articles as well but about nothing much
that was that was fine for us the next
question I ask myself is actually more
of a wish than a necessity which is is
there a strong central character pretty
often at the root of the solution you’ll
have someone or some people and quite
often they will have some kind of
connection to the problem or something
that made them want to solve it if there
is a story about one of these people
that we can tell we like to tell it it’s
not always the case but with improv the
story of Cameron Algie who is the the
guy behind these classes in Toronto is a
really strong part of the program he had
terrible anxiety himself improv helped
him turn it around and he’s now helping
others with the same thing that helped
him and that is a really satisfying
narrative now the final question my my
sixth question that I ask myself is
actually one of the most important and
that’s what evidence is there that this
solution is working that avid evidence
can take different forms there might be
multiple randomized control trials
published in respected scientific
journals or it might just be that the
anecdotal evidence is really strong we
use our judgment as journalists to
decide if a story is good enough to go
on air and most importantly we are
honest with our audience about that with
improv it’s fairly early days in terms
of the scientific evidence or if it does
help with anxiety there’s been a few
small studies but they are promising and
the anecdotal evidence is so strong that
that’s good enough fast and we explained
that to the listeners so I’ve talked
about what solution journalism is and
what we are world hacks bring to the
field
I want to end with talking about why it
matters well firstly the audience wants
it some recent BBC audience research
found that 64% of under 35s wanted then
used to provide solutions as well as the
standard coverage and that only goes off
in places like India Nigeria Kenya which
are also all audiences that the world
service wants to reach so we’re serving
our audiences by doing this but but why
why do people want this remember I asked
you to remember how the news makes you
feel rather than angry resigned
depressed wouldn’t it be better to
answer that question sometimes angry and
depressed sometimes hopeful and
optimistic because that is a more
complete and accurate view of the world
yes bad things happen but sometimes
brilliant things happen as well if the
purpose of journalism is to shed light
on what is happening in the world
we need to shed light on as much as it
as we can and if we can present not only
the problems but the efforts to solve
those problems we can hopefully get that
more balanced response from our
listeners in preparing for today I’ve
been doing a lot of thinking about why I
think solutions journalism is so
important and I can best explain it with
the help of this quote from the American
TV children’s TV presenter Fred Rogers
known as Mister Rogers when I was a boy
and I would say see scary things in the
news my mother would say to me look for
the helpers you will always find people
who are helping to this day especially
in times of disaster I remember my
mother’s words and I’m always comforted
by realizing that there are still so
many helpers so many caring people in
this world the news is often full of
scary things full of problems as it
should be the world can be
scary place but it’s solutions
journalism that looks for the helpers
and in doing so gives us a wider and
therefore more complete more accurate
and more honest view of the world thank
you [Applause]
resigned depressed I want you to
remember that feeling because you’ll see
a headline from these are just some
recent ones about war violence natural
disasters we’re more likely to think of
a story as newsworthy if it’s about
something that’s gone wrong a problem
rather than something that’s gone right
a journalist’s job is to shed light on
what is happening in the world to tear
audience what we think they need to know
and we tend to gravitate more towards
those big dramatic problems what have I
told you there are journalists all over
the world
approaching the news in a different way
and I’m one of them we are still
thinking about problems they’re actually
really really key it’s what we do but
rather than being interested in the
problem itself we’re much more
interested in the solution to that
problem because we practice solutions
journalism and I’m here to explain to
you why it matters so why am I here to
talk to you about this why have I come
all the way to crack off from London to
talk to you about solutions journalism
well as I hope to explain to you I think
it’s really important and that’s partly
because solutions themselves are really
important you can think about all human
progress as the solution to problems the
wheel is was a solution for mobility
issues votes for women social injustice
the Internet access to information all
made humanity better by solving problems
but why why is it me here well my career
path has been a little bit like that
path through journalism from news about
problems to news about solutions that I
just talked about for about six years
I mostly work for BBC Radio 4’s Today
program which is one of the biggest and
most influential news program
in the UK it’s what the Prime Minister
listens to every morning and it was a
brilliant grounding in journalism in
which I covered earthquakes terror
attacks driscoll scandal and as proud as
I was to work for something that held
such an important place in the British
psyche I am much much more proud of the
work I do now because towards the end of
2016 I heard about what was the BBC at
the time something new yep solutions
journalism and I jumped at the chance to
change the way I was thinking about my
work and so I joined shortly after its
launch a BBC World Service program
called world hacks we search for
solutions to some of the world’s
trickiest problems and then we meet the
people behind the solutions to see how
well they actually work and we’re at the
forefront of the BBC’s solutions
journalism coverage I now present the
programme and I also report in and one
of the senior producers I’ll go into
more detail about what we do and what we
think we bring to Solutions journalism
later but first of all I want to go back
to what solutions journalism is well
first of all let’s actually start
talking about what it isn’t firstly
we’re not providing solutions ourselves
with our journalism we’re not trying to
solve problems we’re just reporting on
those attempts it’s also an easy to fall
into is thinking that if something is
just good news or happy story its
solutions journalist and it’s not I
quite often get pitches from someone
with something that’s a positive news
story thinking that I want to cover it
and fairly quickly I’ll have to say no
so what is it well obviously we are
interested in solutions in something
that solving a problem not being that is
kind of a deal breaker for solutions
journalism but we don’t just blindly
report on a solution because we
still journalists and our job is to ask
questions so we would ask questions like
is the solution working what’s the
evidence why is it working why is this
particular approach better than
something else why was this a problem
that needed solving I could go on and in
this way I think we don’t move quite
similar to what Ted and TEDx events like
this and others around the world are
trying to do this is a fantastic forum
for brilliant people to present their
ideas and many of those ideas will be
about how to make the world a better
place
solutions where solutions journalism can
help is to take that out that idea and
spend a bit of time going deeper for me
a good piece of solutions journalism
will identify solution explain why I
should care about the problem that it’s
solving and then spend most of its time
really probing and interrogating that
solution and that’s what we try to do on
world hacks we are a 23 minute weekly
radio program on the BBC World Service
and we also have a podcast called people
fixing the world and a really really
important part of what we do are digital
videos these are short films that we
make about all of our stories we publish
them on the BBC news website and on
social media we want as many people as
possible to see and hear our journalism
and so we try and get it out there in as
many ways as possible we also really
want to reach a younger audience I’ll
explain why later
and we know they live online so we want
to as well and our videos regularly get
millions of views on Facebook alone our
most watched is at the moment on 44
million and our radio program has access
to world service English is audience of
75 million listeners now ours of course
is just one approach to solutions
journalism there are many people across
the BBC and across the world working in
different media with
approach we very much joined rather than
started a movement but this is an
example of how we do it
this is a road safety campaign that is
focused on getting matatu passengers to
speak directly to the driver in case of
any poor driving on the road
drunk driving over speeding overlapping
poor visibility bad roads we did a
sticker because we were looking for an
easy approach we wanted something that
would be easy to put inside a vehicle
the image would clearly communicate what
could happen in an accident and the
message would clearly communicate what
action you could do to keep yourself
safe so here we’ve got a problem a big
one road traffic deaths in one of the
places in the world Kenya where that’s
most a problem we’ve explained the
solution an initiative called sucia puts
stickers in the back of buses called
maturities which encourage passengers to
speak to their driver if they’re worried
about their driving and later in the
video we’ve shown that there’s evidence
that it works
our commissioning process a world hacks
is tough it takes a lot of convincing
for us to say yes to doing a story where
the BBC there’s a responsibility that
comes with that because many people
trust us but I’m about to play you
another one that we did say yes to this
is from a trip to Toronto in Canada that
I did last December it’s about how
improv classes are helping people who
have anxiety and you’re about to hear a
clip from the radio program we made
about this and this is one of the improv
exercises that I joined in with so in
this exercise I’m with a partner maja
and we take it in turns to say one and
then bajas says blah and then I say blue
and we kind of carry on going and there
are there are actions too it’s actually
really hard and in those moments where
you hear me and and maja laughing that’s
that’s when we messed up that was when
it was most fun
when when something’s done incorrectly
you find that moment of joy and laughter
in connection which is hey look at us
we’re failing Cameron says that failures
and mistakes are going to happen in life
the only thing you can change is how
quickly you forgive yourself for them
the process that we use to decide this
story when summer is the same that we
use for any story and the way that I
think about it is I asked myself six
questions firstly obviously it’s
something solving a problem and this
clearly is anxiety is the problem it’s
something that 264 million people around
the world have to deal with and improv
is helping some people do that secondly
is its innovative and by that I mean is
the way the problem is being solved
surprising different interesting in
itself there will be solutions we don’t
cover because they are just a bit boring
or an exciting it could be just putting
a lot of money into something there’s
only so much you can say about that but
with this yes if someone has anxieties
the extent that they need to seek
treatment you would expect them to see a
therapist or take medication improv is
obviously something a bit out of the
ordinary I like to think of it like does
it make me go huh does it surprise me
and this one did next we’re still in the
news game so the solution has to be new
in some way either the people recovering
have to be the first people to have been
doing this or to add something new to
the work and in leastly something new to
the audience which ties into my fourth
criteria which is how much coverage has
this solution had already ideally we
want world hacks to be the first place
that someone is finding out about this
solution the class we visited in Toronto
wasn’t actually the first-ever
improv franchisee class improv has being
used in an informal way for for a while
to help people with anxiety a small
number of therapists mites and patients
took
companies will quite often send
employees to an improv class before a
big speech but the comedy with comedy
school we visited in Toronto is one of
the first to formally and specifically
design a course for those suffering from
anxiety and there have been a few online
articles as well but about nothing much
that was that was fine for us the next
question I ask myself is actually more
of a wish than a necessity which is is
there a strong central character pretty
often at the root of the solution you’ll
have someone or some people and quite
often they will have some kind of
connection to the problem or something
that made them want to solve it if there
is a story about one of these people
that we can tell we like to tell it it’s
not always the case but with improv the
story of Cameron Algie who is the the
guy behind these classes in Toronto is a
really strong part of the program he had
terrible anxiety himself improv helped
him turn it around and he’s now helping
others with the same thing that helped
him and that is a really satisfying
narrative now the final question my my
sixth question that I ask myself is
actually one of the most important and
that’s what evidence is there that this
solution is working that avid evidence
can take different forms there might be
multiple randomized control trials
published in respected scientific
journals or it might just be that the
anecdotal evidence is really strong we
use our judgment as journalists to
decide if a story is good enough to go
on air and most importantly we are
honest with our audience about that with
improv it’s fairly early days in terms
of the scientific evidence or if it does
help with anxiety there’s been a few
small studies but they are promising and
the anecdotal evidence is so strong that
that’s good enough fast and we explained
that to the listeners so I’ve talked
about what solution journalism is and
what we are world hacks bring to the
field
I want to end with talking about why it
matters well firstly the audience wants
it some recent BBC audience research
found that 64% of under 35s wanted then
used to provide solutions as well as the
standard coverage and that only goes off
in places like India Nigeria Kenya which
are also all audiences that the world
service wants to reach so we’re serving
our audiences by doing this but but why
why do people want this remember I asked
you to remember how the news makes you
feel rather than angry resigned
depressed wouldn’t it be better to
answer that question sometimes angry and
depressed sometimes hopeful and
optimistic because that is a more
complete and accurate view of the world
yes bad things happen but sometimes
brilliant things happen as well if the
purpose of journalism is to shed light
on what is happening in the world
we need to shed light on as much as it
as we can and if we can present not only
the problems but the efforts to solve
those problems we can hopefully get that
more balanced response from our
listeners in preparing for today I’ve
been doing a lot of thinking about why I
think solutions journalism is so
important and I can best explain it with
the help of this quote from the American
TV children’s TV presenter Fred Rogers
known as Mister Rogers when I was a boy
and I would say see scary things in the
news my mother would say to me look for
the helpers you will always find people
who are helping to this day especially
in times of disaster I remember my
mother’s words and I’m always comforted
by realizing that there are still so
many helpers so many caring people in
this world the news is often full of
scary things full of problems as it
should be the world can be
scary place but it’s solutions
journalism that looks for the helpers
and in doing so gives us a wider and
therefore more complete more accurate
and more honest view of the world thank
you [Applause]
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