"This year, as legacy news outlets slashed diversity teams, eliminated community beats, and gutted cultural coverage, they undermined the very asset that determines relevance in today's fragmented media environment: cultural fluency. These cuts were framed as cost-saving measures, but in reality, they stripped away the expertise that allows media institutions to build trust, resonance, and meaningful connection with the audiences they claim to serve."
"The forces shaping media today - fractured attention, algorithmic feeds, declining institutional trust, and the rise of niche creators - have made one truth undeniable: audiences no longer offer their attention to outlets that do not understand them. They want journalism that reflects lived realities, honors nuance, and speaks in a voice that resonates with their experience. They want reporting that contextualizes rather than sensationalizes, respects rather than flattens, and serves rather than exploits."
Legacy news outlets cut diversity teams, eliminated community beats, and gutted cultural coverage, removing expertise that builds trust and audience connection. Cultural fluency is the ability to translate culture, tell stories with communities, and understand historical and sociocultural contexts. Racial and ethnic minorities now comprise 42.4% of the U.S. population, making cultural fluency a market as well as moral imperative. Fractured attention, algorithmic feeds, declining institutional trust, and the rise of niche creators have pushed audiences to demand journalism that reflects lived realities, honors nuance, and contextualizes rather than sensationalizes. Institutions lacking cultural fluency face growing irrelevance in 2026.
Read at Nieman Lab
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