News That Doesn't Zuck

Most people get their news from social feeds, and those feeds reward whatever makes you angry enough to post, view and argue. The result is a country split into silos, each hearing only what it wants to hear.

Ground News is a news comparison app that shows how outlets across the political spectrum cover the same story, and how biased each one is. It wanted a launch campaign timed to the 2020 US presidential election, with a media budget of zero.

Our brief, written in June 2020, set the goal: an idea big enough to earn more than a million free impressions. It aimed at 25 to 35 year olds, the age when people form their own views.

News That Doesn't Zuck. Anchors from Fox, MSNBC, CNN and HLN, plus Alex Jones, all deliver the news wearing Mark Zuckerberg's face. Left, right or fringe, it's the same face reading it to you.

They take turns making one argument: no matter who makes or shares the news, an algorithm chooses whether you see it, and it's built to radicalize you. The angrier you get, the more you post and view, and the richer Zuckerberg gets.

The ask is one simple change: stop getting your news from an algorithm. The end line says the rest. No algorithms. Transparent bias. Judge for yourself.

We wrote the brief, pitched four rounds of ideas and scripted the 1:35 film, which reached version 3.4 in October 2020. It was directed by Cale Henderson with production company Pooto and edited by Reedham Shah.

The face swaps went through 13 drafts between late 2020 and August 2021, and we built an influencer list for the rollout. The plan had been to launch in September 2020, around the election; production ran about a year longer.

The latest cut, from August 2021, is a teaser marked confidential, and a public release isn't confirmed. What exists is a finished film and an end line Ground News still lives by.