Behind the headlines: Why we practice solutions journalism

When I met with the folks from the St. Joe Community Health Foundation (SJCHF) in January of this year at their offices in downtown Fort Wayne, I was welcomed by Mark Burkholder and the new director, Matt Smith, who took over a few weeks before. We talked about our backgrounds and the topics that were top of mind for their organization in 2026. We covered a prenatal and infant care network they were supporting as well as immigrant and refugee programs, and a homelessness response program they were piloting.

At the beginning of every year, I touch base with all of our partners. As editor of Input Fort Wayne, I find this is a good opportunity to learn more about their priorities for the new year, hear feedback on our work from the previous year, and, in some circumstances, meet new staff members.

Then, Matt asked me something that redirected our conversation.

“Do these topics seem like topics you’d cover in Input?”

This was a great opportunity to explain how – and why – IMG publications practice solutions journalism. When searching for topics to cover, I’m looking for stories that provide answers to problems my community is facing. These community solutions that SJCHF shared with me are exactly the type of stories I’d cover in Input.

In a typical news story, you might read about a city’s homeless population. How many people are there? What challenges are arising from the growing unhoused population? What problems are they facing? These are all important questions, but if we only asked questions like this, we’d only be exploring the problem.

IMG publications strive to ask questions that look at the solutions to those problems. We ask: Who is addressing these problems? How are they doing it? Why is it working?

Here, Mark and Matt mentioned to me that they were currently running a homelessness response program. While they couldn’t share a lot of information yet, what they did share was that they were piloting a new program, which, if it proved successful, would be rolled out on a larger scale.

An IMG story on a program like this wouldn’t be “good news.” Rather, it would be a thorough examination of a program offering a solution to a problem. Our stories aim to look for responses like this and capture what makes them work, what limits they face, and why they matter. Our work humanizes the people experiencing the problem and gets readers invested, offering a deep examination of a slice of the large, often overwhelming issues facing our communities, alongside the people, programs, and organizations tackling them.

Our reporting follows impact – it’s at the heart of how IMG works. By focusing on how a community is rising to meet its challenges, we provide a more complete picture to our readers, valuable insights for other communities, and a sense of agency that can truly move communities forward.