This week’s devotional focuses on the need for solutions journalism approach to reporting.
The WORD, November 17, 2025
(Publication of Journalists for Christ International Outreach)
“…whatever is true, whatever is noble… excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”
Philippians 4:8 (NIV)
What if journalism showed not only what’s wrong, but what people are doing to fix it?
This was the question that informed Nigeria Health Watch’s experimentation with Solutions Journalism five years ago according to the Managing Director, Vivianne Ihekweazu in a post on LinkedIn on the just concluded Solutions Journalism Africa Summit 2025.
” At that time, our media landscape was saturated with crisis and failure. The stories were true, but incomplete.
The Solutions Journalism approach helped us report the full picture of what’s working, why it is working and what we can learn from it,” Ihekweazu explained.
While journalists can justify reporting crisis, failure and negative occurrences, they should also be interested in highliting positive developments, however insignificant they may seem.
Instead of being fixated on reporting what’s not working alone, the Solutions Journalism approach is a call on journalists to also think of what’s praiseworthy.
Philippians 4:8 (NIV)
“…whatever is true, whatever is noble… excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”
It may take some efforts to find what’s noble, excellent or praiseworthy, but they need to be reported and not give the impression that all is gloom and doom with no progress being made at all in all spheres of life.
What God is doing through individuals, organisations, institutions and others
to solve social problems and challenges. should be acknowledged.
With media audience resorting to news avoidance to limit exposure to negative reports, journalists should be interested in reporting good tidings and good news without necessarily ignoring the reality of the troubled world we live in.
Isaiah 52:7 (KJV) states that
“How beautiful… are the feet… that bring good tidings, that publish peace…”
Proverbs 25:25 (NIV)
“Like cold water to a weary soul is good news from a distant land.”
As Christian journalists, our reporting must capture the total picture of our reality- What’s not working, What’s working and what can be learned to make the world a better place.
Our prayer should always be that the Lord will help us to see what He is doing in various situations and not paint a picture of hopelessness where there is hope.
We thank God for the success of the Solutions Journalism Summit, and pray that participants and other journalists in Africa and worldwide will be more Solutions conscious in their reporting.
The WORD is a weekly devotional publication of Journalists for Christ International Outreach. www.journalistsforchrist.org
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