How do we cover “people like me”?

If the media wants to survive, it must work on trust and represent people fairly.

If 2024 was a year of enormous media challenge in this “unique year for democracy” — with half of the world’s population voting for their elected representatives — then 2025 needs to be a year for deep reflection and real change. The big election year taught us that the media isn’t giving people what they need and want from the news: stories that represent them fairly and reflect their worries and struggles in daily life, not journalists’.

In November, after the U.S. election, a friend told me in shock that her “ultra-progressive” neighbor had voted thinking of the next day’s meal, and had no interest in putting the discussion of rights upfront if there was nothing to eat on the table. She had never found a story in the media about people in her area not buying essential goods because they became unaffordable. Something similar happened in the Mexican election in June, when some journalists were shocked by the incumbent party’s overwhelming victory.

But this isn’t the first time we’ve seen this phenomenon. In the 2021 Digital News Report, Richard Fletcher raised the question of whether newsrooms “primarily staffed by relatively wealthy, urban, liberal-minded journalists could ever really understand people who think, vote, and live differently to them.” That year’s data showed that younger people, people with low incomes, and people with lower levels of formal education tend to trust the news less.

The 2024 Digital News Report again showed how much of the public doesn’t trust most news most of the time. Just 40% of the respondents across all 47 markets say they trust most news.

After reflecting on the lessons of this past year, 2025 should be an opportunity to ask ourselves if we are in a position to cover people fairly. Are our own teams diverse and inclusive enough that fair coverage of “people like me” is just natural?

The role of media leaders is crucial in this appointment. Ensuring the kind of diverse teams that can connect with a diverse audience starts with a leader who promotes a culture of inclusiveness in which people feel safe through their ideas, identity, and ethnicity.

An inclusive and diverse team that trusts in its leadership would find the space to show vulnerability and transform it into strength to cover stories from the people who need more representation in the media. Last year, my prediction was about the urgency of giving readers hope and journalism’s responsibility to listen to an audience feeling emotionally drained by the news. We continue on the same path.

If, in 2025, the media wants to increase the audience’s trust — and, therefore, survive — it must work on representing people fairly. Hopefully, we’ve already learned that fair coverage will only happen if our teams themselves are diverse and inclusive enough to understand the inequality, injustice, and hate stories that genuinely affect people and should be an indispensable part of the news the press delivers.