Stories from Solving Sacramento

The Solving Sacramento journalism collaborative launched in 2022 with the lofty goal to improve our local journalism ecosystem to better serve Sacramento County’s residents. We have since produced hundreds of stories for cross-publication among our seven news partners, but we still hadn’t filled a glaring void — the lack of media coverage of our local Asian American and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander community.

Thanks to a $6,000 APIs RISE Fund grant we can now do our part to improve journalism coverage of the AANHPI populations in Sacramento. 

We are using the grant money to produce several original story packages a month, on issues and events of relevance to the AANHPI community. And we are specifically hiring local journalists (reporters, photographers and videographers) who identify as members of these communities to produce this media coverage. Because we believe, and know, that representation both in terms of who is producing the news and who is reflected as sources within the news are of equal importance.

Here’s a list of some of the stories we’ve done so far:

• Sacramento celebrates AAPI Heritage month with food, culture and community

• Sacramento Bonsai Club celebrates 79 years of living history

• California Museum in Sacramento honors Japanese Americans, Nisei veterans with flag ceremony

• Sacramento’s AAPI Night Market brings culture and community to the Capitol

• Sacramento Groups Address Loneliness, Create Community for Older AAPI Adults

• Jakara Movement’s Mandeep Singh on building community power for Punjabi Sikhs in Sacramento

• Sacramento Iu Mien Festival celebrates community, preserves culture

We are also doing most of this coverage through a solutions lens — moving beyond the doom-and-gloom of traditional journalism to instead examine what is working and why, and what else needs to be done. We believe this solutions approach provides a sense of agency for readers, and results in a deeper sense of investment in our own community.

The change we wish to see is Sacramento’s AANPI community to be more comprehensively included and covered by local media, and for journalists who identify as part of this group to be an integral part of this improved coverage. We could still use your help: We continue to look for AANHPI journalists and for story ideas. You can reach us at info@solvingsacramento.org. Thank you! We are so grateful to API RISE Fund for their support!

Sena Christian, Managing Director, Solving Sacramento