TV stations and their news operations provide solutions to problems in the communities they serve all the time. It’s in their DNA.

Like helping individuals or groups get action or justice from government agencies or local businesses. One phone call from a troubleshooter or a TV consumer reporter can cut through a lot of red tape.

When tragedy hits town, TV stations cover it and then often hold benefits for the victims.

But fixing societal issues like school safety, crime, domestic abuse, mental health and affordable housing is more elusive and less tangible.

Graham Media’s approach using its stations is to find just some solutions to these problems instead of just reporting them.

Jeremy Allen, special content producer for Graham Media based at WDIV in Detroit, says Catherine Badalamente, Graham Media’s CEO, had a vision a couple of years ago to “make sure that our news is closing that loop and not just reporting the problems, but ultimately boiling it down to actionable solutions that can be carried on by community members. That is how we hatched this idea for Solutionaries.”

Solutionaries is YouTube focused, Allen says, “an experiment to see if we can grow a YouTube channel from zero on solutions-based journalism.”

So far, so good. Overall views on Solutionaries’ YouTube channel are at 1.6 million, with more than 40,000 watch hours — a big metric in the YouTube space, Allen says.

Solutionaries got its start in June 2021 when a pilot episode aired on WKMG, Graham’s CBS affiliate in Orlando, Fla.

“Never in my career have my bosses come to me and said, ‘We want you to be part of a team that reimagines a newscast’,” says Louis Bolden, an investigative reporter for WKMG. “You have no rules, do whatever you want, except we don’t want it to look like a traditional newscast.”

Allen says Solutionaries is “digital focused media consumption with a new look, a new style centered around solutions journalism.” 

Jenna Zibton, an anchor and reporter at Graham’s NBC affiliate in Roanoke, Va., went through the solutions training with Graham Media in 2021.

“It’s been an exciting project to work on,” Zibton says. “Our team has remained the same. I work with the same photojournalist on each story and we are encouraged to try different things, shoot in different styles and if it doesn’t work we do it differently the next time. Shooting for both YouTube and on air at the same time, we are constantly learning.”

https://youtu.be/bC0ikilqbwA

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Part of the push for Solutionaries to be on YouTube is not just the freedom to experiment with storytelling techniques for the digital user, but the segment lengths go longer than the bite-sized packages viewers are used to in a newscast.

No one at Graham Media is under the impression that Solutionaries has the answers to all of society’s woes.

“It can be an overwhelming concept at first, so it’s important to look at smaller solutions and not get lost in all the possibilities that are out there,” Zibton says.

Trying to tackle systemic issues universal to all communities is often impossible, Allen says.

“But hopefully grassroots solutions can be implemented to help solve at least parts of the problem,” Allen says.

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Allen says he has regular contact with all the Graham Media’s stations to brainstorm “what problems might exist or what solutions have they seen that are working.”

Zibton says approaching sources from the solutions angle makes them “more willing and cooperative and viewers like seeing the different approach too. Being able to point out solutions is rewarding.”

Marketing Solutionaries on YouTube has its challenges.

The Graham stations are using their broadcasts to show clips from a Solutionaries story to pitch viewers to check out the whole story on the YouTube page.

And newsletters culled from mailing lists help get the word out to some 40,000 people.

Allen says news personnel are encouraged to speak to groups in the community to help them understand that solutions journalism has a place.

“There is hunger for it,” Allen says.

https://youtu.be/ushqxt62ejs

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