News orgs feed the appetite for authenticity

Documentaries don’t usually draw huge audiences, but Netflix has found a winning recipe with a genre that takes viewers behind the scenes with quarterbacks, race car drivers, and baseball stars.

Formula 1: Drive to Survive, now in its seventh season, offers such remarkable access to the drivers and race directors that it boosts the TV audience for the actual races. Quarterback, a series that follows a handful of NFL players throughout a season, was so popular that it spawned Receiver — as well as a second season of QBs. Another show, The Clubhouse, followed the Boston Red Sox during a difficult season.

The Netflix programs embody a concept that came up recently in one of my journalism classes at Duke University: authenticity. The shows depict star athletes confronting the challenges of real life — injuries and interceptions and even bouts with depression.

Like the best scripted films, the Netflix programs are character-driven. Viewers get vested in a few players and their narratives. Many stories are simple: whether a driver will win at Monaco or how a receiver will cope with an injury. Others are deeper, enabling us to see athletes struggling with self-doubt or the pain of aging.

The shows aren’t cheap to produce. Producers have to negotiate with the teams to get sufficient access and camera crews spend many hours recording scenes that get left on the cutting room floor. But the completed programs are remarkable because they take viewers inside locker rooms and players’ cars and family dinners that are traditionally off-limits to journalists.

In 2026, media executives should take inspiration from this trend. They should look for ways to adapt the Netflix recipe to their everyday news coverage.

The popularity of the Netflix programs reveals that people want deeper and more elaborate narratives than they get in traditional sports coverage. In an age when lies have swamped our political discourse and AI has filled our feeds with fakery, people are yearning for content that is authentic.

I think that’s partly because our story forms and newscasts often seem formulaic and artificial. TV anchors with perfect hair and makeup deliver the news while sitting at strange desks in strobe-lit studios. Reporters still write news articles in a dispassionate third-person style that often ignores or underplays the drama of real life. The reporters are trying to be neutral and rely on familiar formats, but those old practices can rob the stories of their humanity.

Journalists have long produced stories that take us behind the scenes, such as the old standard, the how-the-deal-came-together story. Those narratives, often filled with details about what people ate at fancy restaurants, have become a staple of political and business coverage. Larger media organizations even have a few writers dedicated to long narratives. But those stories are a small piece of our daily journalism.

They can be part of daily beat coverage as long as editors are open-minded about how to approach the news. As a reporter, my favorite stories came when I simply asked, “Hey, can I hang out with you for a day?” I got to see a congressman meeting with a queen, a pilot worrying about the weather, and a White House advance team staging a campaign event.

In the coming year, news executives should encourage more of those stories and provide reporters with the time and guidance they need to do them right. Follow a high school football player for a season; spend time on the campaign trail with a city council candidate; or just hang out with a public school teacher for a week.

Those stories don’t require a lengthy and expensive commitment. Many can be done in a few days. And regardless whether the stories are long or short, they will appeal to the consumers’ constant desire to understand the news and the people behind it.

As Netflix has shown, some of the most compelling stories are the simplest. It’s time to add those stories to our daily coverage.