SVT (Swedish Television): The Feather

SVT (Swedish Television) is the public service broadcaster of television in Sweden, similar to the BBC in the UK. In a new initiative, SVT aims to show how the need for all the things that public service provides and guarantees might be greater than ever in the digital age. The campaign has been produced in collaboration with agency Akestam Holst and production company Acne film. In this first film, the focus is on the growing need for factual journalism in a world where digital misinformation is on the rise, and the responsibility everybody today shares for fact-checking and thinking twice about we share - as citizens, journalists or even as powerful world leaders. The film follows how a simple prank video uploaded to Swedish social media through a series of misunderstandings, exaggerations and purposeful distortion is transformed into a global news story about a mysterious chicken epidemic in Sweden. Along the way, everyone from regular people, insufficiently cautious journalists and figures like Xi Jinping, Boris Johnson, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump play a role in turning a rumor into a perceived fact. The launch of the campaign has continued the debate on the role of Sweden’s public service in the future, and as intended has provoked multiple reactions from both its defenders and its critics – across Twitter, newspaper editorials and several major television programs.