An Idea I Had, and the App That Did It

About ten years ago, I had an idea.

I was watching friends and family share wildly different news articles on Facebook and Twitter. Some were outrage-driven. Others were clearly biased. More and more were outright misinformation.

It was frustrating. Not because people disagreed, but because the how of news was becoming harder to trust.

So I sketched out an idea. What if we could take a single story and synthesise coverage from multiple sources? We could use machine learning (now AI) to highlight the differences in tone, focus, and political leanings. Like a running sidebar, showing why and how each version was different.

My original concept was a unified, synthesised article, not just a mash-up, but something thoughtfully written. As you read, some lines would be annotated or highlighted. For example, “This line is neutral here, but Source A framed it more emotionally.” Also, “Right-leaning outlets emphasised this, while left-leaning ones didn’t.” A kind of live bias map layered over the text.

I never built it. I didn’t have the time or energy, or the know-how, honestly.

But a few years ago, I discovered https://ground.news, and there it was. Expressed differently, but built on the same principle: helping people see through the noise.

They break down coverage by political bias (from far left to far right). They show a “blindspot” rating to flag what you might be missing. You can follow specific topics. They even highlight factuality and media ownership. All these tools support more conscious, balanced media consumption.

I still think there’s room for inline commentary someday. Ground News is the best expression I’ve seen of the problem I was trying to solve. And I’m genuinely glad it exists.

Have you used Ground News or something similar? How do you keep your media diet balanced?