Positively Scottish online magazine launches with a solutions angle on stories

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Positively Scottish, a not-for-profit online magazine, launched on 6 June to cover stories with a solutions journalism approach.

The magazine will focus on how individuals and groups of people tackle issues they come up against in their community, to offer an alternative to traditional media outlets which too often highlight the conflict and the problem rather than its solution, said co-founder Calum Macdonald, former digital editor of the Herald and Times Group in Glasgow.

Macdonald hopes to reach an audience that has become disengaged from traditional journalism and thinks the focus on problems is "too much".

"If you take that approach [solutions journalism], you get a much higher level of engagement.

'It's not about ignoring the reality, it's just about having that extra dimension and changing the perspective of the story which I think is really interesting," he told Journalism.co.uk.

He was inspired to start Positively Scottish after hearing about media organisations who adopted solutions journalism, such as the Fixes column at The New York Times and What's Working from The Huffington Post.

Our new not-for-profit online mag with inspiring Scots stories: first big hit by @pseudo_writer on social enterprise pic.twitter.com/PgdReoHIFq

— PositivelyScottish (@PositivelyScot) June 5, 2016

Macdonald, who teaches journalism part-time at Strathclyde University and has more than 30 years of newsroom experience, is also keen to build a platform for young reporters graduating from their journalism degrees in a world where "the job prospects aren't that high".

He told Journalism.co.uk he wants to create a "virtuous circle" at Positively Scottish of "finding work for talented journalists" and covering stories that are not being told elsewhere with a more positive approach.

Positively Scottish already counts 15 freelance reporters among its writers, who will all be paid market rates. The founding team set up a Community Interest Company so all revenues generated by Positively Scottish will be paid back into the magazine.

In its first phase, the magazine is funded by a personal legacy that ensures Positively Scottish can publish one story a day Monday to Saturday until the end of the year.

In the meantime, Macdonald is exploring other avenues to keep the magazine going, including subscriptions, grants or editorial partnerships.

"The first 25 years, I worked purely on editorial and we never spoke to anyone in advertising," he said.

But with the move to digital and changing advertising practices, he is "already used to the idea that you work hand in hand with the commercial side of an operation to make sure that clients, the customers, are getting something back."

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