“If there’s 100 journalists, the job of 99 of them is to point to the problem. But 1% of us have to then go, ‘Well, what are we going to do about it?’ That’s where solutions journalism comes in. That’s what excites me,” said Oliver Balch, a British freelancer based in Portugal. Solutions journalism is “rigorous and compelling reporting about responses to social problems,” according to the Solutions Journalism Network (SJN).

It’s crucial that journalists who advocate for causes adhere to the core tenets of the profession – truth, accuracy, rigorous research.