Its staff in New York City and Oakland, California, help journalists and news organizations across the country understand, value, and build the capacity to do solutions-oriented reporting.

As of November 2017, the organization says it had created working relationships with 180 newsrooms in the United States, exposing thousands of journalists to the practice of solutions journalism.

[2] The Solutions Journalism Network grew out of the "Fixes" column in The New York Times Opinionator section written by journalists David Bornstein and Tina Rosenberg since October 2010.

[4] In its first year, SJN also launched a series of funds to provide financial support to journalists pursuing solutions stories on topics concerning climate change resilience, social and emotional learning, and women's economic equity.

These responses, it holds, are an important part of what is happening in the world, and accurate coverage of society must include them to be able to provide the whole story.

By covering how people are attempting to solve problems, and writing objectively about the associated evidence of failure or success, solutions journalism seeks to provide information of value to society.

SJN argues that such reporting strengthens the watchdog function of journalism: if some people have found newsworthy responses to a problem, it removes the excuses of those who are behaving badly.

In October 2013, the Seattle Times launched a series of education-related articles, documentaries, and guest opinion pieces written from a solutions standpoint.

They write a major feature article each month addressing perennial issues with education, like dropout rates, attendance, parent involvement.

Responses from a survey taken of Seattle Times readers indicated that people are aware of the campaign and feel that the solutions stories being run are different from traditional journalism.