Perfect as the Enemy of Good: How the Seeds of Solutions Journalism for Environmental Reporting Take Root In Canadian Alternative Media

Any research for climate in the news sends back bleak headlines about misinformation, inaction and worsening global warming. Solutions journalism can balance this pessimistic view and promote social support of transition-oriented, science-based adaptations and mitigation strategies. Using a sequential mixed-methods approach, this study explores how seven Canadian online alternative media outlets applied solutions journalism to climate change and environmental reporting in 2022. It addresses how and why newsrooms are shifting to solutions journalism, using both content analysis and qualitative interviews with reporters, with a case reconstruction approach. The results show that journalists use solutions-oriented framing in over a third of all climate and environmental articles, but meet the full criteria of solutions journalism in only 8.5%. Intentionality from the reporters proved central to solutions-frame building, and could be low while other factors promoted some degree of solution integration over full-scale solutions journalism. Supporting the development of intentionality across all levels of influences in journalism can address this challenge.