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📻One Big Story 📻

What happens when your home floods year after year and there is no unified solution? 

This month, we are spotlighting a two-part series on urban flooding in Berwyn, Illinois -- a diverse community, praised for its walkability and proximity to Chicago. The reporting is shaped by months of engagement work by our News Ambassadors fellows along with reporting to uncover urgent challenges residents face due to repeated stormwater overflows and basement flooding. These kinds of stories show how journalism can elevate lived experience, expose systemic failures and spotlight the residents working for lasting change. The series was reported by student journalist Britton Struthers-Lugo, a reporting fellow from our News Ambassadors/Latino News Network cohort.

Part one of her series explores how residents in the predominantly Latino suburb of Berwyn, Illinois, have faced years of repeated flooding during heavy rainstorms that overwhelm the city’s aging sewer system. Struthers-Lugo shows how this crisis affects Berwyn families both emotionally and financially and raises questions about the lack of clear answers and support from local officials to flooding that affects a sizable number of residents’ properties. It also exposes a community’s deep sense of neglect from the systems that were designed to protect them. The series was published by our community engagement partners Illinois Latino News and Cicero Independiente and was amplified nationally by our partners at The Fulcrum.

Part two looks at attempted solutions to address urban flooding in Berwyn and elsewhere, and what Berwyn residents can learn from the limitations and challenges of each approach. Struthers-Lugo explains how outdated infrastructure, overlapping layers of local government and unclear responsibilities make it hard to plan for the long term and why communities of color are often disproportionately affected by these floods. She explores several ways the community has attempted to mitigate urban flooding from green alleys with permeable pavement to planting trees to reduce erosion and aid in water absorption. Her reporting showcases both limitations and potential solutions. We like this story because learning from what’s been done already - both successes and failures - is a key part of solutions journalism - and part of the path to create effective, lasting change.

Broader context: Climate change continues to bring stronger storms and heavier rainfall. But not all communities face the same risks. Low-income neighborhoods and communities of color often lack the resources, infrastructure and political power to support full recovery. These stories help us understand who bears the burden and who gets left out of the solutions.

Why we are highlighting this series: News Ambassadors spent Fall 2024 doing community engagement in the city of Berwyn, along with collaborators from Latino News Network, WBEZ and Cicero Independiente. We launched a community survey, held a local listening event and talked to residents about what they wanted from local news. These stories are part of the first attempts to infuse the concerns of Berwyn residents into our coverage priorities. We are proud to see our first community-responsive stories published by our publishing partners Illinois Latino News and Cicero Independiente, as well as amplified by our friends at The Fulcrum.  We have a couple other stories coming out from this same effort. Stay tuned!

>>Read Part One: The Problem<<

>>Read Part Two: Attempted Solutions<<

Bonus Content: Check out Britton-Struthers’ companion audio interview with Berwyn resident Julia Klee. Klee built a tiny forest of trees in her yard to help mitigate and reduce the flooding of the alley by her house – and now is helping others do the same with native plants in tiny plots of land around the area. 

>>Check out this companion audio interview with Klee here>> 

We love bringing you great resources and opportunities at the intersection of Solutions Journalism, depolarization strategies, community engagement reporting and news-academic collaborations! Enjoying our newsletter for free?

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✨Solutions Commentary Spotlight ✨

We're working to find homes for some great audio pieces from our spring 2025 News Ambassadors cohorts, including this piece by Prairie View A & M University student Kyndal Parks in Prairie View, Texas. In a thoughtful commentary on grief, Parks brings a solutions lens to the question of how communities can better show up for people navigating loss. Her reflections point to the importance of creating spaces where people feel seen, supported and able to heal. We love how her piece speaks to the deeper work of building communities rooted in care and belonging. >>Listen to the piece here<<

✨ Depolarization Trainings this Fall ✨

Interested in depolarization reporting strategies training for your Journalism school, fellowship cohort, or newsroom? Fill out our training request form! We are certified trainers of the depolarization reporting strategies known as Complicating the Narratives, designed by High Conflict author and journalist Amanda Ripley and her Good Conflict colleague Hélène Biandudi-Hofer. The strategies were born from researching conflict mediation psychology studies – how people actually behave when they're feeling suspicious and threatened by the other side - and distilling lessons journalists can use to improve our coverage of contentious issues and move beyond flattened oversimplified sides. 

✨Resource Spotlight✨ 

Those of you who practice engagement journalism are probably familiar with the best practice concept called “closing the loop” on engagement - essentially letting folks know the results of their input and what eventual stories came out of your newsroom’s effort with the community. It makes sense that it’s poor form to ask community members to spend time sharing their thoughts and feedback and then never follow up to share how their contributions impacted reporting. Or worse, to collect lots of feedback and not do anything with the information you learned.

At News Ambassadors, we are fans of applying a similar concept to stories shaped by other reporting strategies. In other words being transparent with your audience to help them understand the methods that informed your reporting, such as a brief blurb about what depolarization reporting is and why you’re using these strategies to shape your story. 

Check out our Closing the Loop Slides for tips on explaining your engagement journalism, Solutions Journalism or depolarization strategy coverage to your audience! (Shout out to our amazing former engagement strategist Kristine Villanueva for the slides!)

✨Upcoming Events/Opportunities✨

Sign up for updates from the Advancing Democracy 2025 Team hosted by Solutions Journalism Network, Hearken, Trusting News, and Good Conflict - all national leaders in the media and democracy space. This dream team is exploring the core practices that strengthen trust in journalism: transparency, engagement, solutions reporting, and constructive approaches to conflict.

AEJMC’s Engaged Journalism Exchange Unconference in San Francisco invites civic media and journalism folks to join their August 6th in-person preconference to AEJMC in San Francisco, CA. Space is limited. RSVP soon if you’d like to join: https://bit.ly/EJE2025

Ready to level up your reporting? Check out these training opportunities from some of our favorite journalism support organizations and friends of News Ambassadors. 

Introduction to “Complicating the Narratives” (Depolarization Reporting Strategies) Webinar July 15th @ 3pm EST on Zoom

Led by journalist Dana Amihere, will explore the basic pillars of "Complicating the Narratives" framework, how to cover polarizing issues, and how to listen for understanding. >>Register here<<

Introduction to Solutions Journalism Webinar August 5th @ 6pm EST on Zoom. 

How can journalists better cover not just the problems, but the responses too? Join the Solutions Journalism Network for a one-hour session on the principles and pillars of solutions reporting. This webinar will explore how to find, report and share stories that show what’s working. >>Register here<<

Engaged Journalism Exchange 2025: Organizing for Care  August 6th @ 12pm- 5:30 pm PST

The Engaged Journalism Exchange project will be hosting an unconference and networking reception focused on connecting researchers and practitioners responding to local and global information needs.

Where: In-person @ Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications, San Francisco Campus (44 Montgomery St., 18th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94104)

Cost: $25 for university-affiliated faculty, FREE for graduate students, practitioners, and community members >>Register HERE<<

Want to make your democracy reporting more useful to the communities you serve? Join this Engagement Journalism training! Led by Bridget Thoreson of Hearken, this two-part series will explore how to listen deeply to your audience and community—and meaningfully integrate their voices into your coverage.

• Session 1: July 21, 2025 at 1 p.m. ET / 10 a.m. PT An introduction to real-world strategies for identifying and responding to community information needs throughout the editorial process. Learn the fundamentals of audience engagement, explore case studies from across the country, and walk away with practical tools to make your coverage more participatory, relevant, and trust-building.

• Session 2: August 18, 2025 at 1 p.m. ET / 10 a.m. PT A deeper dive into the most common challenges newsrooms face when engaging their communities—and share proven strategies to overcome them.

  >>Register HERE for one or both sessions<<

National Conference on Impact of Student Reporting October 2-4 in-person in Vermont >>Register HERE<<

✨What We’re Reading✨

From our colleagues at the University of Vermont’s Center for Community News, we’ve been impressed by The Surprising Breadth of Student Reporting in Public Media. Their research shows that nearly 9 out of 10 public media organizations offer opportunities for college students to help cover their communities. These opportunities range from regular ongoing work at more than half of these stations to dedicated “teaching hospital” stations that focus primarily on training student journalists. Student reporters contribute across a wide variety of public media outlets both large and small, urban and rural, including many serving news deserts.

>>Read the full report here<< 

We’re thrilled to know this type of news-academic collaboration is taking place on such a wide scale! At News Ambassadors, we see an additional need to dig beyond this research and flesh out – and even map – which journalism schools and newsroom partnerships are moving beyond traditional reporting frameworks to integrate promising strategies with community-centered reporting that builds trust and supports healthy democracy. 

We want to know about cool journalism schools and news-academic partnerships across the US that are leveling up their skills in various ways:

• exploring Solutions Journalism or depolarization reporting strategies

• convening community input to help shape coverage in response to local needs

• using trust-building strategies to respond to skeptical audiences

• experimenting with collaborations

• innovating on better ways to strengthen local democracy through their reporting

• overlapping the above skills with public media reporting 

Know a cool journalism school effort or news-academic partnership that should be on our radar?

Shoot us an email at [email protected]

Did you know we offer trainings on Solutions Journalism, Complicating the Narratives and community engagement?

If you or your organization is interested, reply to this email to get in touch.

You can also explore collaboration with News Ambassadors for your newsroom or journalism students.

Fill out the News Ambassadors potential partners form 

That’s all for this month. We’re taking a break for August -  see you all in September! !