We’re excited to catch you up on the News Ambassadors program and highlight the great work done by our partners. If you care about strengthening communities and better supporting democracy, follow us on Instagram or Linkedin, donate or forward this newsletter to a friend.  If this was forwarded to you, subscribe here to get future updates directly to your inbox.

Before we dive into our newsletter today, we’ve got an important announcement:

 📣 Have you ever wanted to take News Ambassadors’ Depolarization Reporting Strategies training? 📣 

We usually train groups — classrooms, newsrooms, fellowships — but in March we’re experimenting with something new: we’ll be holding a training open to individuals, including both journalists and non-journalists (shout out to friends at NCDD, ListenFirst, BAEF and the broader democracy and deliberative dialogues world!) This training will be focused on the four pillars of the Complicating the Narratives method, designed by High Conflict author and journalist Amanda Ripley and her Good Conflict colleague Hélène Biandudi Hofer. It will be offered on a sliding scale with a suggested donation to News Ambassadors upon registration. Check it out and spread the word! »Learn more and REGISTER HERE«

Now, let’s dive in to this month’s newsletter.

📻One big story 📻

This month, we’re highlighting a story about how the small college town of Prairie View, Texas, is bracing for impacts from Houston’s growing urban sprawl. Prairie View A & M University student Kirsten Prince reported the story after surveying and talking to community members and attending a City Council meeting. One thing she learned? Both Prairie View leaders and students want to attract more social and economic opportunities — like restaurants, shops, activities and more housing — to the city year-round, so they don’t have to travel to nearby towns for a night out or a place to live. Leaders say students sticking around even when school is out can give local businesses — and potential new businesses — a more stable customer base. 

Prince was a student in Professor Tony Clomax’s audio reporting class in 2025 and an engagement fellow with News Ambassadors starting in late 2024. 

Why we like it:  Over several months, Prince, a Prairie View resident herself, met with local community members to learn top concerns. Prince’s work with News Ambassadors took her off-campus and out of her comfort zone to speak publicly at a local City Council meeting, survey nearby residents and meet local elected officials. She also wove in both asset-framing™ and some SoJo concepts (highlighting the response of another college facing similar challenges) as she reported this community-responsive story.

Broader context: Other PVAMU student reporters have covered stories about the lack of sufficient campus housing to meet demand, pushing large numbers of juniors and seniors to join the ranks of reluctant off-campus commuters. At the same time, nearby Houston was the second fastest-growing city in the U.S. from 2010-2023 according to statistics from Rice University’s Kinder Institute, but expansion of infrastructure and housing has not been even across neighboring towns.

Tip: Even if you don’t hit all four pillars of Solutions Journalism on your first try, you can still take steps to set your reporting apart from the many problem-focused stories which leave out any mention of how people can respond or build resilience in the face of challenges. While true SoJo stories have solutions as the central focus of the entire story, even initial attempts to weave in some pillars from SoJo and CTN can level-up student reporting. (Case in point: Some of our partners’ solutions-themed stories that didn’t quite hit all four pillars have still won recognition for their local station in recent student journalism awards.)

 📣 📣 Listen to the full story here (starting @ 8:56, after two host intros)

🚲 🚗 🚶🏻‍♀️What we can learn from Hoboken’s nine years without fatal traffic accidents 🚲 🚗 🚶🏻‍♀️

Applying a Solutions Journalism lens as several cities make strides to end fatal crashes

Shia here, director of News Ambassadors.  This month I am happy to share a story I recently reported for Reasons to Be Cheerful, the Solutions Journalism magazine started by (former Talking Heads lead) David Byrne. It's a look at how Hoboken, New Jersey, worked to prioritize traffic safety, and how they’ve achieved zero traffic deaths for nine straight years… and counting. 

Takeaways:

💡 A core strategy is to assume human drivers will make mistakes and factor that into road designs... so that drivers’ inevitable errors don’t have to be fatal. (Remember the layered swiss cheese model from the covid pandemic?) 

🗝️ How they rolled out the changes is important. By piloting changes at one or two intersections at a time, they let residents experience the new safety changes in action and allowed time for feedback and adjustments before rolling out city-wide upgrades.

👉 There isn’t a one-size-fits-all formula, but communities can analyze which unique factors contribute to local traffic deaths where they live and then make changes in response to what they learn. Hoboken is small (1.2 square miles) but much larger cities such as Helsinki (83-square-miles!) have reached similar milestones, too.

Read the full story in Reasons to Be Cheerful: The City Where Traffic Fatalities Vanished. You can also read it here via our friends at the Fulcrum.

News Ambassadors ✨Resource Spotlight✨ 

You’ve probably already heard us share our favorite new Solutions Journalism tool of 2026, Luz. The trilingual SoJo pitch bot was created by our friends at El Colectivo 506 in Costa Rica to help journalists strengthen their SoJo story pitches. We want to hear about your experiences with Luz, and so do Luz’s creators, who built the resource with support from Reynolds Journalism Institute. They asked us to share this message with those of you trying out the pitch bot:

Have you used the new Luz solutions journalism chatbot? Do you have a training, class, mentoring process, or other activity in the next two weeks when you could use a free, trilingual (English-Spanish-Portuguese) tool to help participants work through their story ideas? The co-creators of the tool, Costa Rica’s El Colectivo 506, need your help! They are compiling feedback and testimonials from people who have used the tool—which they created with the Reynolds Journalism Institute to support journalists and students who are thinking through solutions journalism story ideas. Simply use the free tool at luzlab.org, and send your feedback (in any of the languages used) to El Colectivo 506 co-founder Katherine Stanley at [email protected] or WhatsApp +011.506.8483.1992 by March 10th, 2026.

El Colectivo 506 would particularly like to hear from you: From journalists/students, did Luz make it easier for you to plan a story that includes solutions journalism’s four pillars? Did she save you time? Would you use Luz again? From trainers/professors, did Luz help your students gain a deeper understanding of SoJo and the four pillars? Did she effectively respond to errors or misconceptions that reporters needed help with? Would you use Luz again in a future class or training?

📆 Upcoming Events/Opportunities 📆

Want to take News Ambassadors’ Depolarization Reporting Strategies training? Now’s your chance! News Ambassadors is opening our next Depolarization Strategies training to individuals, including both journalists and non-journalists. Focused on the Complicating the Narratives method, the remote session will be a chance to build your listening and narrative skills around telling stronger stories of “we.” The training will be offered on a sliding scale with a suggested donation to News Ambassadors upon registration. »Learn more and REGISTER HERE«

Solutions Journalism Networks’ free Solutions Journalism trainings and opportunities: SJN has a bunch of great upcoming events, including FREE monthly Intro to Solutions Journalism trainings, a Covering Climate Now Academy (applications open!) and other events and opportunities. Check out their Events page and select Training as the option.  

In-Person (Philly) Service Desk for information providers: Gazetta’s Patrick Boehler and Madison Karas have been sharing service approaches with newsrooms via The Service Desk this past year, and soon will host a one-day service design sprint for anyone building an information service - whether you're a local newsroom, independent creator, legacy outlet, or solo operation. This in-person workshop in Philly for information providers will be a chance to work on an audience challenge or opportunity and tackle questions that usually get sidelined in the hustle of day-to-day content production: Who is actually benefiting from my work? How do I know? And how will I measure it? »Apply HERE by Feb. 27«

Applications are open for a The California Local News Fellowship! The California Local News Fellowship program is a groundbreaking, multi-year, state-funded initiative to strengthen local journalism across the state. Each year approximately 75 early-career journalists are working as local news fellows in two-year, full-time public service reporting positions, with an emphasis on underrepresented communities »Apply HERE«

Looking for a job in journalism?  Check out the February Journalism jobs from Rebecca Aguilar’s Calling All Journalists list! 

Scripps Howard Journalism Fund: Fall 2026 and Spring 2027 Student Media Sustainability Challenge!  »Apply by April 12, 2026«

SJN Awards: Enter your best SoJo work from 2024 or 2025 into consideration for a Solutions Journalism Network Award! There’s a special category for Student Journalism SoJo stories!  Deadline February 27, 2026. »Learn more and Apply HERE by February 27«

Mental Health Resource for Journalists. There’s now a new resource with a special focus on journalists’ mental health. The Media Resilience Network connects journalism organizations, experts and local allies to build ecosystems of care, including Peer Support, Coaching & Counseling. This confidential, culturally competent care—online and in-person— is offered as support for journalists. Reach out via email [email protected] or signal +973-626-7294 or at the link above.

That’s all we have for you until next time!