Key Takeaways

As part of this project, the Better Life Lab offered a solutions-journalism framework to our cohort of reporters. Each reporter worked independently (with editorial support available upon request), using their journalism skills to report and write their stories.

Here are the key takeaways from our child care innovation reporting grants process:

• Change is happening; we just need to know where to look. In this round of reporting grants, a number were clustered in locations that had been innovative in bringing public funding to child care infrastructure, notably Vermont and New Mexico.
• As policymakers and innovators continue to find new ways to bring child care solutions to families, journalists have a role to play in documenting the results. By highlighting good practices and reporting on their limitations, we are building a better road map for other localities to use.       
• Audiences receive their news in myriad ways, and it is incumbent on reporters to seek out new sources and media. In this round of reporting grants, we were especially careful to seek out both sides of the political spectrum, as child care transcends party lines.
• Storytellers, too, come from all walks of life. One goal of our reporting grant process has always been to highlight new voices, including those with experience as educators. Though we did not have any educators as grantees in this cycle, we made sure their stories were included.
• The story does not end when it’s published. In this cycle, we added a video component and encouraged each reporting grantee to record a short video to share on social media, giving their story a new audience and more time in news feeds.
• Amplification matters. We also began a partnership with Public News Service, which adapted one of our stories as an audio feature for large audiences every month, often reaching tens of thousands of listeners. Because many of these clips aired on non-news-focused radio stations, more people heard about the vital role child care plays in different communities and learned what solutions look like.
• Child care has a bipartisan audience. Few issues transcend party lines the way child care does because parents of all political stripes want high-quality care for their children. The ability to communicate about child care across party lines and outside partisan echo chambers has been a cornerstone of our reporting strategy. We drew on it this round with stories appearing in publications on both sides of the political spectrum.