How can journalism go beyond helping people understand society’s problems and give them a greater sense of agency in responding to them? That was the question Transitions posed at the European Communication Conference (ECC 2026) in Brno this September.
As part of the pre-conference Communication and Democratic Resilience: Perspectives and Pathways, Transitions’ solutions journalism program manager Meenal Thakur joined Kyser Lough, Associate Professor of Journalism at the University of Georgia, to present From Information to Agency: Solutions Journalism as a Practice of Democratic Resilience.
The presentation brought together two perspectives on solutions journalism: more than a decade of academic research into the approach and what it means when those ideas are put into practice in newsrooms.
Kyser explored what research tells us about solutions journalism, its foundations, reporting practices, and effects on audiences, while Meenal shared lessons from Transitions’ work bringing solutions journalism into newsrooms across Europe – including cross-border collaborations, climate reporting, and work in fragile and conflict-affected environments.
Drawing on our experience working with 44 newsrooms across 21 European countries, the presentation explored what happens when solutions journalism moves from a methodology taught in a training room to something journalists adapt to their own communities, editorial environments, and reporting challenges.
For Transitions, bringing practitioner experience into an academic setting is also an important part of the work. Research can help us understand whether and how new approaches to journalism work; practice can reveal the questions, constraints, and possibilities that emerge when those approaches meet the realities of a newsroom.