A student journalist follows a hunch about the origins of the disinformation crisis and uncovers damning evidence of corruption, but also discovers flaws in her own media heroes and accidentally provokes a vendetta that threatens to destroy the very thing she wanted to repair: her relationship with her Dad.

SYNOPSIS:

Jo Patnode, snarky daughter of rural poverty, finishes her shift at a chicken plant and heads to community college, barely missing a beat when her car sputters out. She spars with her dad and others about the right-wing media disinformation machine. She discovers an outdated journalism standard that strikes her as problematic; her professor concurs.

To the dismay of her partner Nic, their old friend Shon invites Jo to visit NYC, sealing the deal with the news that her indie cleaning crew has a gig in the same building as Real America News (RAN) HQ. With her idealistic itch, Jo boards a bus to New York and re-kindles chemistry with Shon. An ill team member creates an opening and suddenly Jo is in close proximity to her archenemy, soon finding her way into RAN’s offices.

She overhears the CEO’s nephew Blake bragging about RAN being in the influence business. She takes this ‘hot tip’, to the U.S. Times, her long-revered media leader, and is mostly rebuffed. She snoops around the RAN offices. On a tip, Jo travels to CEO Ray Murphy’s estate, where she breaks into an inner office revealing a hidden operation devoted to payola: manipulation of the news on all sorts of hot-button issues.

Now she’s on fire. The Times begins an investigation with Jo assisting. Suspicious, Shon cuts her from the cleaning crew. Locked out, Jo ‘borrows’ Shon’s badge to get back into the building for research and drops it as she is chased out by Blake, who pursues and threatens Shon. Jo rescues Shon with her upstate pétanque skills but Shon furiously throws Jo out on the street. Jo’s Dad tells her she can’t come home until she listens to him, and Nic reports a warrant is out for Jo’s arrest.

Blake identifies Jo and Looks instigates a smear campaign on her dad, who goes into hiding.

Along with these disasters, Jo has begun to realize that her long-revered media leader has failed to connect with her people. She calls out The Times for remaining comfortable in their own echo chamber, and accuses them of delivering Ray’s audience to him through their own failures.

Through Shon’s teachings, Jo decides to control her response to the situation. She quits the investigation in hopes RAN will cease harassing Mat. The Times remains hot on the story, envisioning major awards.

As Jo boards a bus out of town, Nic (Mat in tow) shows up to check on Jo. But Shon texts her with an SOS because Blake has captured her; Jo and Shon scramble back to help. Ray, exasperated, lectures Blake about the underhanded reasons for the station’s success. Shon surreptitiously shoots a video of Ray’s rant. And Jo persuades her audio engineer friend to record the same rant. The audio recording gets traded for a retraction of Jo’s arrest warrant, but the video recording that Shon made is free to share.

UPSTATE GIRL