On Your Story: Structure and pitching points with Swati Sanyal Tarafdar

You’ve attended a Solutions Journalism training. Or, maybe a masterclass on pitching. You understand the frameworks, and might have landed a scoop. You’re excited about pitching your story to an international outlet; or reporting stories that go beyond problems and investigate what’s working.

And then you sit down to find a pitchable, functional structure. But you can identify none - everything seems either absolutely important or make your pitch read like an essay.

Where do you begin?

Most journalists struggle with 'slicing their stories thin'. You may have a broad theme but struggle to identify the actual story. You may have a promising story but aren't sure whether it truly qualifies as Solutions Journalism, if that's what you want to pitch. You may understand the four pillars but struggle to turn them into a strong reporting structure, or how to pitch it convincingly to an editor.

That’s where I come in.

I’m an accredited Solutions Journalism trainer and mentor who has worked with global newsrooms and journalists from across the world. I mentor journalists through fellowships, grants and editorial programmes, helping them develop individual stories and series into rigorous, compelling solutions journalism. I work global journalism award and fellowship committees as jury member and selector.

In this 1:1 session, we can work on:

- Finding the story hiding inside your larger theme or beat

- Testing your story for SoJo — is there genuinely a response worth investigating?

- Building the four pillars and identifying the evidence you need

- Structuring the story so the reporting has a clear narrative arc

- Strengthening your reporting questions and identifying gaps

- Developing the story angle and headline promise

- Turning your idea into a strong pitch for an editor, newsroom, funder or commissioning organisation

- Positioning the story for publication without losing its journalistic rigour

My particular interests are climate solutions, social justice and health, but don't let your beat stop you. I love and have been practicing solutions journalism in education, gender, governance, agriculture, environment, science and more, but if your idea doesn't fit the rigour and approach of SoJo, we can still work on it to identify five other story streams from it.

That's what I excel in. I help you brainstorm a story idea to flourish it in various forms, and then guiding you to pursue these to publication.

** I don't name publications and editors. That is a basic function that journalists have to do on their own. I can tell you how.

Effectively my goal is to offer you that freelancing and journalism training that every professional needs but can't find in journalism schools: Move you from “I think I have a story” to “I know what my story is, how I’m going to report it, and how I’m going to pitch it.”

So bring to me what you're struggling with.