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piqer for: Boom and bust Health and Sanity Global finds Doing Good
Danielle Batist is an experienced freelance journalist, founder of Journopreneur and co-founder of the Constructive Journalism Project. She lived and worked all around the globe and covered global and local stories of poverty, exclusion and injustice. Increasingly, she moved beyond ‘problem-reporting’ to include stories about the solutions she found. She witnessed the birth of the new nation of South Sudan and interviewed the Dalai Lama. She reported for Al Jazeera, BBC and the Guardian and regularly advises independent media organisations on innovation and sustainability. She loves bringing stories to the world and finding the appropriate platforms to do so. The transformation of traditional media fascinates rather than scares her. While both the medium and the message are changing, she believes the need for good storytelling remains.
How One Former Mining Town Re-Ignited Its Economy
Those who’ve read my piqs before might know I’m a firm believer in constructive journalism: exploring what’s working instead of only looking at what’s broken. Yes Magazine in the US has been doing this for the past two decades and it’s a source worth checking out to get ‘solution stories’ about all parts of American life.
This article is a good example of how Yes Magazine combines grassroots-level reporting with a ‘can-do’ approach. It features a small Kentucky community that manages to find a way to rebound from the dying coal industry it once relied on. It’s a town with a poverty rate of 33 percent (twice the national average) and it would be easy to write about the doom and gloom in towns like this. Instead, it features residents turning the tide. These residents launched initiatives like the Culture Hub, an incubator for local organisations and companies, where they share resources and connections. Collectively, they apply for grants they wouldn’t get on their own and campaign for better internet access (only 1 percent of the community has access to broadband!).
It’s an interesting insight into what it might take to create genuine opportunities in areas that so desperately need them.
