Why Some Stories Don’t Make Headlines
By Lana Almansoori | News | May 11, 2026
Cover Illustration: Rana Ayuub speaking at Free Press Live 2026, February 3, 2026. Lana Almansoori/The Amsterdammer
Why do mainstream news outlets report on some events but not others? Hard news reporter Lana Almansoori explores how a combination of lack of funding, censorship, danger and audience reception shapes what content make it to headlines
On February 3, 2026 the FPU, Free Press Unlimited, held its delayed 2025 Award Ceremony, celebrating the work of two independent journalists and presenting them with the awards for Newcomer of the Year and Most Resilient. However, the larger part of the ceremony was dedicated to discussing the importance of independent journalism in 2026 – the overarching conclusion of this discussion being that independent journalists are more willing to cover events larger news networks are uninterested in reporting on.
The Executive Director of the FPU, Ruth Kronenburg, explained that, as a journalist, she is frequently asked why she neglects to report on various foreign crises – and yet, she does not actually neglect the stories she does not report on. She cited a lack of funding, censorship, danger and news value as the reasons for why particular events do not make headlines. Kronenburg further explained the process of agenda-setting, whereby news outlets select stories according to these considerations.
News value refers to the value news outlets ascribe to a story depending on anticipated audience reception. Audiences are generally more interested in stories which are localised and likely to impact their personal lives. As journalist George Kennedy explains in his co-authored book “News Reporting and Writing,” ‘[t]he most important criterion for determining news value is impact – how many people in your audience will be affected and how seriously.”
Stories which receive mainstream attention despite pertaining to foreign events are often connected to their audiences in some way. For example, readers in the Netherlands are particularly concerned with the conflict between Israel and Palestine which is likely because of the large Muslim population in the Netherlands, Dutch government’s relationship to Israel and the historic significance of WWII in the Netherlands. However, events which are distant and not personally relevant to readers, such as the Sudanese Civil War, have less news value and are therefore underreported.
Kronenburg states “[a]ttention itself is scarce” – news outlets either rely financially on reader retention or are financially incentivised to prioritise reader retention and must therefore publish stories according to the interest of readers. She suggests that “crisis [reception] doesn’t always reflect its severity.”
Financing in journalism is, in a way, a cyclical issue. Underreported events often bring in fewer readers and advertisers, thus less revenue. In spite of this, these events are often the most costly to report on. Journalists covering foreign conflicts and human rights violations are required both physical and legal protection which entail expensive equipment, professional support, insurance, lawyers, the list goes on.
Director of Lighthouse Reports, Klaas van Dijken, explained how coverage of foreign issues often require more funding than coverage of local issues because it is more difficult to acquire footage from foreign countries and to verify the accuracy of the material. He added that many smaller news outlets rely on collaborating with mainstream outlets to be able to finance foreign coverage.
Journalists are often in need of physical protection when reporting on conflict. Recipient of the 2025 Newcomer of the Year Award, Almigdad Hassan Mohamed Ali, explained that most mainstream news outlets were unwilling to finance his coverage of the Sudanese Civil War because of how costly protective equipment, security agents and healthcare may be. There is a perceived disparity between the significance of foreign crises and the willingness of news outlets to report on them which can largely be explained by the costs of reporting on these crises.
Preceding recipient of the Most Resilient Journalist Award, Rana Ayuub, explained that in response to her coverage on the corruption of the Indian government, the authorities accused her of libel and money laundering among other crimes. The recipient of the 2025 Most Resilient Journalist Award, Ulvivya Guliyeva, was similarly faced with legal accusations by the Azerbaijani government which sought to suppress her coverage. In fact, she was unable to receive her award in person, as she is currently a political prisoner.
Journalists reporting on the most important current events often seek legal protection from news outlets because they are often made political targets. For this reason, news outlets are often incapable or unwilling to finance certain stories, since they do not consider them to be worthwhile investments, considering the revenue from these stories is expectedly low.
Furthermore, political censorship often discourages journalists and news outlets from reporting on particular events altogether. Few journalists are willing to risk imprisonment or false charges to report a story, and even fewer are willing to risk being targets of political assassinations. Similarly, it is often in the interest of news outlets to avoid reporting on issues which could make them and all of their associates political targets.
At the ceremony, the director of Salvadoran news outlet El Faro, Carlos Dada, explained the cost of spending his career reporting on the dictatorship in El Salvador, making a statement which perfectly exemplifies this issue: “all my news room is now in exile.” The severity of an issue is often proportional to the severity of punishment for reporting on an issue.
Even mainstream news outlets which may have the funds to manage legal troubles may be discouraged from reporting on certain events because this might jeopardize the funding they receive from the federal government. News outlets such as the BBC and NPR are less likely to publish stories which depict the governments who fund them in a way that is incriminating.
Essentially, the overlapping issues of censorship, funding and audience reception make coverage of foreign crises significantly more difficult with little expected return on investment. However, the most important insight which all the journalists at the ceremony converged on was that there is hope for readers to improve the coverage of news outlets.
If attention from audiences provides incentive for news outlets to report on particular events, then audiences can influence the stories news outlets prioritize by re-orienting their news intake to account for underreported stories, no matter how distant or irrelevant they may seem. If readers want better coverage on foreign crises, they have to become willing to allocate significantly more time to reading about these crises. They have to be willing to navigate to the “Foreign Affairs” tab of the independent news outlet of their choice.
Lana Almansoori is a university student in Amsterdam. The views expressed here are not necessarily those of The Amsterdammer.
