A small number of mostly independent news outlets acknowledge that the real ‘experts’ on any particular news story are the people whose lives are most impacted by the events and situations that the stories describe. The Global Press Journal employs reporters who are based within the community about which they report, recognising the value of journalism that is informed by an understanding of local languages, local customs and contexts, and local histories, so that information is framed in a culturally and contextually appropriate way.

Managing editor of the Global Press Journal, Krista Kapralos (2018) describes what she terms the ‘reliability gap’: a phenomenon in dominant news journalism where predominantly Western media groups and news outlets collect and represent data and evidence based on Western normative standards, regardless of whether the situation being reported on is geographically or culturally Western. Kapralos (2018) adds:

The Guardian's editor-in-chief, Katharine Viner, insists that media outlets ought to be much more representative of the societies they aim to represent. A survey conducted in the United Kingdom revealed that a privately educated elite still dominates that country's journalism profession, and that journalism has revealed a trend towards social exclusivity more than any other profession (Weale 2016; Jones 2016). According to Viner (2017), ‘This matters because people from exclusive, homogenous backgrounds are unlikely to know anyone adversely affected by the crises of our era, or to spend time in the places where they are happening.