“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” – Leonardo da Vinci
One thing should always be critical when writing stories: context. According to the Oxford Dictionary, context refers to the part of a discourse that surrounds a word or passage and can illuminate its meaning.
In journalism, context should be applied to historical narratives, political reporting, social issues, cultural stories, environmental reports, economic analysis, and personal stories. This is important because it allows readers to engage more deeply with the material and makes the story easy to understand.
Journalists are supposed to relay information to the audience in the simplest, most direct way possible. Beating around the bush and applying heavy jargon is not recommended because you are not writing for scholars but rather a diverse populace consisting of individuals from all literacy levels. Journalism is not a vocabulary contest.
Being clear in news writing clarifies complex issues that readers struggle to understand, increasing relevance and averting misinterpretation. For instance, consider a press statement by the Judiciary of Kenya. The language of Law often employs archaic or foreign phrases to avoid ambiguity. But the readers are not necessarily legal practitioners, so if you present the information as it is to your audience, that’s a brutal miss.
Let me add to the context of my point exactly;
On Sunday, April 6, 2025, Nation Africa posted this headline: U.S. revokes all South Sudan visas over failure to repatriate citizens
“The U.S. said on Saturday it would revoke all visas held by South Sudanese passport holders over South Sudan’s failure to accept the return of its repatriated citizens, at a time when many in Africa fear that country could return to civil war.”
Above is the lead to the article. So far, a reader can answer a few questions raised in the headline. The reader can almost guess what comes next and why.
Now, since context is the circumstances that form the setting for an event—in this case, the U.S. revoking all South Sudan’s visas—more information is needed to connect the dots.
The article continues to elaborate that South Sudan failed to respect the principle that every country must promptly accept its citizens’ return when another country seeks to remove them.
The reader would wonder, “Why all the fracas?”
It’s impressive that the Nation answered this question at the very end by elaborating that AU mediators were in the country (South Sudan) in efforts to bring conflicting President Salva Kiir and Vice President Riek Machar to common ground.
The media giant does not fail to provide more context on the conflict as it concludes with a reminisce of 2013-18 when the country was paralysed by civil war, which was ethnically motivated between Dinka (President Kiir’s side) and Nuer (VP Machar’s side).
In this article, the flow of information begins with the U.S. decision, then moves to South Sudan’s situation and the reason for the status quo based on the country’s history. The writer takes us to the U.S. and then brings us back to South Sudan.
Nation ticked all the boxes in building up context and spreading it across a news article to convey the message simply but precisely.
