The media has enormous power to shape what people know.

What happens when the stories we hear about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are overwhelmingly stories about crime, disadvantage and conflict?

We start to believe that those stories are the whole story.

That was one of the concerns raised during the Australian Parliament's current inquiry into racism, hate and violence directed at Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The inquiry is examining not only racism itself, but also the influence of social media and the ways information can spread and cause harm.

Evidence presented to the inquiry has highlighted concerns about the way mainstream media can repeatedly focus on crisis and conflict while giving less attention to achievement, culture, community leadership and the everyday lives of First Nations people. Recent hearings have also heard concerns from Indigenous journalists about online abuse, misinformation and the way negative coverage can reinforce harmful perceptions.

This isn't about saying difficult stories shouldn't be reported. They absolutely should.

Journalism has a responsibility to investigate crime, expose failures and hold governments and institutions accountable. But context matters. So does balance.

If audiences constantly see Aboriginal people presented through the narrow lens of problems, it becomes dangerously easy to turn individual incidents into assumptions about entire communities.

And that's where stereotypes thrive.

There is another Australia that deserves to be seen, too.

It is the Aboriginal artist creating extraordinary work.

The young person learning their ancestral language.

The ranger caring for Country.

The musician taking Indigenous stories to the world.

The Elder passing knowledge to the next generation.

The entrepreneur building a successful business.

The teacher inspiring children.

The community quietly doing remarkable things that rarely make the front page.

These stories aren't 'soft news'.

The media has enormous power to shape what people know—and what they think they know. Responsible reporting doesn't mean avoiding uncomfortable truths. It means making sure those truths aren't presented without context, and that First Nations people are not reduced to the worst thing that has happened in a community.

At a time when misinformation can travel around the world in seconds, we need more stories, more voices and more perspectives—not fewer.

Because when we tell only one kind of story about a people, eventually the story itself becomes the stereotype.