Simply is a digital journalism series created by Al Jazeera Egypt to help audiences understand complex events, policies, crises and everyday issues that directly affect their lives.
In an environment where news moves faster than audiences can process it, many important stories are difficult to understand—not because the information is unavailable, but because the mechanisms behind it are complex.
“Simply” addresses this gap by taking complicated subjects and breaking them down into clear, accessible visual stories. The series combines journalistic research and verification with AI-generated visuals, maps, graphics and limited real footage to reconstruct events, explain invisible systems and place audiences inside the story.
The result is not simply a summary of the news. It is an attempt to answer a more useful question:
What does this story actually mean for me?
Every episode begins with a real question, event or issue that matters to people.
The team researches the subject, verifies the relevant information and identifies the elements that make the story difficult to understand. These elements are then broken down into a visual narrative designed for digital audiences.
The language is deliberately accessible and locally familiar, allowing complicated economic, scientific, technological and political concepts to be explained without unnecessary jargon.
The goal is not to remove complexity from the subject, but to remove unnecessary barriers to understanding it.
“Simply” demonstrates that AI can be used in journalism for more than speed, automation or visual novelty.
It can become a new visual language for explaining reality.
The series uses AI to visualize what cannot easily be filmed, journalism to verify what is being explained, and accessible storytelling to make complicated subjects understandable.
Its impact is therefore not simply measured by the number of views.
It lies in creating a bridge between information and understanding—helping audiences move from knowing that something happened to understanding how it happened, why it matters and what it means for them.
“Simply” makes complexity easier to see, easier to understand and harder to ignore.
The series was initially published by Al Jazeera Egypt across Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and X.
To date, “Simply” has produced 15 episodes, distributed through 71 social media posts.
Across these posts, the series generated:
The strong audience response also encouraged the development of similar content formats for Al Jazeera Iraq and Al Jazeera Lebanon.
These platforms represent an expansion of the editorial format rather than part of the performance figures reported above.