An award-winning American journalist, Sarah J. Wachter, has urged Nigerian journalists to do more of solutions journalism while reporting Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
Watcher gave the advice on Thursday at the concluding session of a webinar series organised by the U.S. Consulate, with the theme: “How to Report on COVID-19″.
She said that journalists need to do more research on individuals and organisations working toward solutions, rather than fixating on the problems.
According to Wikipaedia, Solutions Journalism is “an approach to news reporting that focusses on the responses to social issues as well as the problems themselves.”
These solution stories, anchored on credible evidence, explain how and why responses are working, or not working, and the goal of such journalistic approach is to present people with a more complete view of issues.
According to Watcher, journalists should focus in detail, on how good the solutions are and how they work.
“Your solutions approach should focus on effectiveness, not good intentions, and also give available evidence of the results.
“You should discuss the limitations of the approach and seek to give insights others can use while speaking with sources that understand the problem at the grassroots,” she said.
Watcher urged journalists writing on COVID-19 to help set the agenda for discussion of the pandemic.
According to her, part of the coverage of journalists should answer questions like what has been holding the country back, and what can be done quickly in the fight against the pandemic.
“The role of journalists is to set the agenda and inform the global debates.
“All of us must look for solutions for our country, and when we talk about solutions for the economy, we need to look at a systemic, not a sectoral approach.
“There has to be collective action at the community, country and global levels. We should collaborate toward solutions in a more integrated way,” Watcher said.
She further suggested experts and sources to contacts, both locally, internationally and even, at the continental level, in the search for solutions to the pandemic.
Some of them, she said, included: herbal researchers, including Nigerian Institute of Medical Research (NIMR), Nigerian Council of Physicians of Natural Medicine (NCPNM), Nigeria Natural Medicine Development Agency(NNMDA), among others.
She said that the COVID-19 pandemic had a form of link to climate change.
According to her, the source of COVID-19 was linked, but not exactly, to a particular specie of bats.
“Deforestation leads wild animals such as bats to seek other habitats, especially in human communities.
“Wild animal meat was a source of the Ebola virus, so while we are paying attention to COVID-19, we also need to pay attention to climate change and its effects,” Watcher said.
She also urged journalists to help reduce the stigma of the the virus, which will evidently be with us for a long time, by creating compassion in stories on the pandemic.
“The pandemic calls for big-think stories that address the country’s most pressing issues such as the state of public healthcare.
“The nature of the informal economy and how there can be a shift to the formal sector should also be discussed as means to reducing the level of poverty,” she said.
NAN
 pandemic.){kind=link}