Keep Asking

The entire value proposition of journalism compressed to a verb.

In 2022, facing an Australian public deeply fatigued by pandemic reporting, algorithmic misinformation, and highly polarized digital ecosystems, ABC News launched the Keep Asking campaign. Developed by creative agency Leo Australia, the initiative was an explicit attempt to defend the fundamental utility of public-interest journalism at a moment when audiences were actively retreating from the news cycle. The campaign emerged directly from research showing that media fragmentation and disinformation were eroding baseline trust in institutions.

Rather than projecting institutional authority through grand sweeping montages, the creative execution deliberately used a stripped-back, minimalist aesthetic. The production built physical sets and captured footage entirely in-camera, mirroring the rigorous mechanics of investigative news-gathering with the visual honesty of analog process. The campaign foregrounded the raw, often uncomfortable act of interrogation - reminding viewers that credible journalism is defined not by the answers it dictates, but by the difficulty of the questions it refuses to drop.

Two words. The entire value proposition of journalism compressed to a verb. Not we tell you. We keep asking. Journalism as practice, not product - and a strategic counter-strike against the passivity of infinite scrolling. The public broadcaster positioned curiosity itself as a civic duty, arguing that in a fragmented media landscape the relentless persistence of the human journalist is the only bulwark against institutional evasion.

Sources: lbbonline.com ↗campaignbrief.com ↗www.marketing-interactive.com ↗www.youtube.com ↗