Taking a Solutions Mindset Beyond Our Newsroom
Dear Reader,
Last week, I completed the last of five Train-the-Trainer sessions organized by the Solutions Journalism Network!
I was invited to participate in the program as the Southeast Chapter leader of The Uproot Project. Joining our colleagues in the SJN Climate Solutions Cohort, we revisited the four pillars of solutions journalism, talked about andragogy (the science of teaching adults), and built hour-long training plans that matched the specific contexts of the groups we serve: in my case, that's early-career environmental journalsts of color who wear many hats in micro-newsrooms.
It's exciting to engage with journalists, both inside and outside of The Xylom, on why telling the whole story is good journalism. We're committed to empowrering writers, staff and freelance, to produce more solution journalism this year (our sixth anniversary is in less than two weeks!)
Yours sincerely,
Alex Ip
Editor-in-Chief
TODAY IN THINGS YOU MUST READ
FAMILY NEWS!
- Last call to take our audience survey! Every response is important to us here at The Xylom and as a thank you we will randomly select five responses to get a $50 gift card!
The Xylom Audience Survey
- Editor-in-Chief Alex Ip is selected to the Institute for Nonprofit News Emerging Leaders Council! He will be working on The Xylom's operations documentation and succession planning over the summer and into the fall.
- We have two nominations for the Atlanta Press Club Awards for Excellence: Alex Edwards' A Walk through Weelaunee Forest is a Photo Essay finalist, while Alex Ip is in the final three of the Rising Star category.
- Welcome to the South, Rose Schnabel! She is joining WUFT in Gainesville, Fla. as a Report for America fellow!
- Our Newsroom Fellow Shreya Agrawal has an insightful piece about the growing profession of eco-chaplains, spiritual leaders who respond to the climate crisis, for Sojourners.
- Congrats to Cydney Wong for her first first-author paper!
A SOUTHERN FLAIR
- In Savannah, the Mercer University School of Medicine brought along high school students across rural Southeast Georgia in hopes to inspire them to pursue a medical career and alleviate the region's physician crisis. More on GPB.
- In 2003, Arkansas became the first state to send home BMI reports about all students as part of a broader anti-obesity initiative. However, the state’s childhood obesity rates have ony risen since. KFF Health News asks: What now?
- After years of delays and massive budget overruns, Units 3 and 4 of Georgia's Plant Vogtle, the first U.S. nuclear reactors built from scratch in decades, are finally operational. Is this the harbinger of a new era, or a cautionary tale? Grist's Gautama Mehta investigates.
- This does not come as a shock to us, having gone through public higher education in the South, but The Lens has produced documentary evidence of how fossil fuel dollars directly influences research and coursework at LSU, the Pelican State's flagship state university.
WHAT ELSE WE'RE READING
- We hope you've had a glimpse of the solar eclipse earlier in the month! Here are two of our favorite accounts of the astronomical event, from Sequencer co-owner Shi En Kim and Atmos' Katie Myers.
- If you haven't heard of Asimov Press, Wendi Yan's feature, "Discovering an Antimalarial Drug in Mao’s China", is a poignant entry point.
- The New York Times takes a look at how in Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim country, mosques are leading a "Green Islam" movement that is transforming the ountry through environmental cleanups, investments in renewable energy, and religious edicts.
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THE XYLOM'S RECENT STORIES
In Rural Western Uganda, A Tree-Planting Initiative Shows Signs of Life
- In rural Western Uganda, an ambitious collaboration between Ecosia, Jane Goodall Institute Uganda, and residents to grow 200,000 trees in the Budongo-Bugoma Corridor is reaping the rewards for people and wildlife. A solutions photo feature from Kang-Chun Cheng:
Perspective: Am I Invasive?
- Check out an exclusive excerpt of Ayurella Horn-Muller's new book, "Devoured: The Extraordinary Story of Kudzu, the Vine That Ate the South," where she detangles the complicated stories of the South's fickle relationship with kudzu, and hers with the South.
A Moonshot to Cure Angelman Syndrome is Reachable. Where are the People Counting on It?
- Just one faulty gene leads to Angelman syndrome, characterized by a happy demeanor and developmental disabilities. A cure is coming, but identifying patients in Hong Kong and ensuring they can access treatments is hard. More in our Rare Disease Day coverage by Crystal Chow, supported by The National Press Foundation’s Covering Rare Diseases Fellowship:
Ayden Can’t Speak. Lead Poisoning is Probably to Blame.
- Meet Ayden. He’s 8 and no longer speaks. He has tantrums when frustrated and does not play with other children at school. In 2019, his parents learned that his lead levels were 20 times the current federal level of concern. How did this happen? (via MLK50)
“Cheetahs Arriving by Plane Does Not Make It a Restoration Project”(NOW AVAILABLE IN KANNADA)
- Yet another death has cast doubt on the future of India's ambitious and controversial cheetah reintroduction program. Pragathi Ravi looks into where flaws in the underlying science and transparency issues have doomed the initiative from the start.
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