Our story
We didn't lose our editors. We automated them.
Prism shows one news story from every side of the spectrum, with the facts everyone agrees on, the bit each side leaves out, and every source one tap away. It's built for the generation growing up with the news chosen entirely by an algorithm. We're looking for the editors, publishers and backers to build it properly.
01 · How it started
It started with a prediction that came true
Eleven years ago I wrote that we hadn't lost our editors. We'd automated them. The argument was simple. The job of deciding what matters didn't disappear when newspapers declined. It got quietly handed to recommendation feeds built to hold your attention, not to give you a true or balanced picture of the world. I thought it would get worse. It did. Then generative AI poured petrol on it.
I'm not writing about this as a theory any more. I've got kids. They're going to grow up in a world where balanced, sourced, honest news is something you have to go hunting for, while everything that finds them is tuned to keep them scrolling.
I'd rather build the alternative than write another post about the problem.
I've spent 20-odd years in marketing, digital and AI, most recently building and shipping AI tools inside a large UK business. So I know the difference between a demo and a thing that actually works. This has to be the second one.
David Bain, founder
02 · Why now, and why this audience
The front page moved. Most news brands didn't follow.
The numbers are stark, and they're from the Reuters Institute and Pew, not from us.
of 18–24s in the US say social and video networks are now their main source of news. Up 13 points in a single year.
Reuters Institute, 2025 ↗of under-30s in the US regularly get their news from influencers on social media.
Pew Research Center, 2024 ↗of those news influencers have no affiliation with, or background in, a news organisation.
Pew Research Center, 2024 ↗of people across 48 markets sometimes or often avoid the news. In 2017 it was 29%.
Reuters Institute, 2025 ↗They'd rather watch or listen than read, and they're reluctant to visit a news website at all. Across 48 markets, 44% of 18–24s now say social and video are their main source of news.
So there's a generation forming its entire view of the world inside systems that have no stake in whether what they see is true or balanced. That's the gap. And right now there's no serious, UK-built tool meeting them where they already are, on TikTok and YouTube, with balance and sources instead of outrage.
03 · What we're building
Every story has the same anatomy
A balanced-news product that lives where this audience already is.
- 1
The floor
The facts all sides accept.
- 2
The spread
How the left, the centre and the right each frame it.
- 3
The blindspot
What each side quietly leaves out.
- 4
The receipts
Every claim linked to its source.
We don't tell anyone what to think. We make sure they've seen the whole picture before they decide. The media-bias ratings won't be ours. They'll come from independent monitors like AllSides, Ad Fontes and Media Bias/Fact Check, so the judgement stays out in the open.
The website is the home, where balance happens and sources can be checked. TikTok, YouTube and Instagram are how we reach people and pull them back to it, fronted by a consistent presenter, because a face beats a faceless brand with this audience.
04 · Why we think it works
Two things that work. Nobody has put them together.
The best tool for reading the news fairly is Ground News, and it proved people want this. It's become one of the most-sponsored brands on YouTube. But it's built for a mass, mostly older, mostly American market, and it still reads like a news site. The best youth-news outlets, RocaNews and HugoDécrypte, proved the format works: social-native, host-led, genuinely engaging. Nobody has put the two together, for the UK, for the young.
That's the wedge. Ground News's substance, in a form a 16-year-old actually wants to use.
05 · Where we are
Early, and honest about it
There's a working prototype live, built in days: real UK stories broken down across the spectrum, every claim linked to its source. We've produced the first AI-presenter video as a proof of concept, a format that scales to a story a day across TikTok and YouTube without a studio.
The foundations are real. What it needs now is people and backing to turn a prototype into a product.
See the prototype06 · Get involved
What we need
Editors and journalists
Who've spent careers making the calls we're trying to rebuild. To set the editorial standard and keep us honest.
Publishers and partners
Who can help this reach the audience at scale.
Developers
Who want to build something that matters.
Investors
Who back a mission with a real market, early.
Several of the best of these are in Scotland, where I'm based. If that's you, I'd rather have a conversation than send you a deck.