Lisa Urlbauer: Most of your stories in the Solutions Story Tracker are short-form videos. In general, solutions stories as videos are rarer than other forms of solutions journalism. What does it take to cover solutions in videos?
Dougal Shaw: I don't think of it as separate things, video and radio. I either find an idea interesting or I don't. My way of doing a story is I go there, and I record everything on my mobile phone. I record it as a video, but I am also getting audio that way. Then I decide what different platforms I can put that story on, because I am a multi-platform journalist. How is it best going to work? I usually do a radio version from the interview that I have done. Then I'll do video and if the subject is only worth two minutes, it's going to work on Facebook. And I make a TV report as well, because that can just be two minutes. But if it's a bit more in-depth, it can be a five- or six-minute YouTube video. Maybe there's another TV format at the BBC News where they take longer videos. It depends completely on the story.
"What are the first visual things you are going to see that will explain the story very quickly, just with your eyes?"
I have learned enough skills that I can make radio, video, short-form, long-form or I can write about it as well. I've got quite a visual imagination. When a story is going to interest me, I think "what would it look like?" Are there going to be any arresting, striking pictures? What can I see here? On Facebook, you only [have] the first five, ten seconds, maybe even less, like three seconds, to get someone's attention when they're scrolling through the timeline. You need to have really strong visuals. That's why for my stories like the circular runways, recycling chewing gum or building roads out of plastic bags I am always thinking "what are the first visual things you are going to see that will explain the story very quickly, just with your eyes?"
LU: How do you come across the responses that you are covering?DS: I pitch a lot of my own ideas; my favorite thing to do is to work on a story where I had the idea myself. 90 percent of the things I do are my own original ideas. My favorite way to get ideas for solutions journalism is that somebody has contacted me, a member of the public, to tell me about something. Whenever I do a story, I have my twitter handle or my email address on the bottom of it. When somebody is moved by the story or thinks "that reminds me of something else where I live", they may have got a way to contact me and that means I can come up with an original story. As we all know, in this modern digital space, there's just so many people doing very similar things. I am always on the lookout for something that feels very unique and different.
The other way I like to find stories is by crowdsourcing them. Whenever I put a story out, I scroll down the Facebook feed to see how people have reacted to it. Often you see a little conversation that has built up underneath the original story and if you keep an eye on that, it might be that they are talking about something that you can follow up on. Or just the old-fashioned way by speaking to people, whether it's friends or people you meet in the streets, on the train or in a bus stop. Or by reading a publication you wouldn't normally read, by joining a Facebook group that wouldn't normally be your thing. Just trying to put yourself outside your comfort zone so that you get exposed to different ideas.
LU: And that works well for you?DS: I find a lot of stories that way. Also, once you're a journalist and you've been doing it for a while, you will get PR people who will suggest companies or initiatives. I've had one or two stories, where it has been worth checking it out, this company or thing they were suggesting. If no one else has covered that story it might be a good way. Or when you go out to do another story and you are speaking to the people, quite often the contributor will tell you something about their world that is really intriguing, and you didn't know about it. It might be obvious to them, but it has completely opened your eyes about something. It is kind of like a domino effect: You do one story and they will tell you about other things and you can go and follow that up.
I usually [have] three stories on the go and a list of stories that I want to do, which is getting bigger all the time and I can't even keep up with all the stories I would like to do. But if I ever feel like I need something, I might look on Twitter and set up Tweetdeck, search for hashtags like social enterprise, solutions journalism or constructive journalism. Sometimes you might then stumble across some blogs or some interesting things happening in parts of the world that you know you are going to visit.
LU: What advice would you give journalists who would like to do more solutions journalism in their daily work?DS: In essence it remains the same, it's just a different slant on a story. A good solutions journalism story still has to have all the ingredient of a good story anyway - it is just that you are coming from them at a slightly different angle. In my experience and looking at all the feedback I've been getting from the audience, they are just appreciating the stories that are giving them a sense of hope. Instead of starting from a depressing premise, which has become the norm in news, in all our features there is a hopeful premise, because we're going to follow the story where you are hoping that the person in their endeavor is going to have a social impact. They may or may not be able to do that, but at least the story arch is something hopeful and inspiring. That has a very good chance to translate into success on social media, because it feels positive and you want to share it.
One of the problems you can have is that even though it is tempting to make everything seem really positive and like, "oh this is great and it will definitely work", but at some point you have to poop your own party a little bit, you have to pop your own balloon to introduce some caveat. Sometimes it feels like I am spoiling my own story, but you have to have this. One way to do this is to introduce it as part of the struggle. This person is trying to change the world for the better, but it is a struggle to do that and here are some of the problems they have to overcome.
One other thing that I would say, as part of my personal reflection, is that I see myself as a feature journalist. But I always felt like a digital reporter without a beat. I didn't have one subject area where I could say I always do that. Sometimes I would do a science story, sometimes an environment story, a business one, a technology one - but there was no real common thread about what I did. Solutions journalism gave me a beat. It gave me consistency to my work, and also a sense of moral purpose.
So many times now, I get emails back from people after I have covered them - even though I am obviously not looking for their validation - they will say that the coverage I gave them had such a massive impact for them on the ground and now there is a similar scheme happening in these places or lots of other media appearances. This positive idea is starting to grow, because you have helped to spread it. That can be a very nice feeling. Sometimes as a journalist you think if I was a doctor or a teacher, it is quite obvious that I would have a positive social impact, but as a journalist sometimes you have these doubts about what am I actually contributing. When you are working in solutions journalism, you do see the impact by helping these ideas to spread. I found that quite nice.