Translating governance and policy into content Gen Z reads

Before The Gist Labs publishes anything, the team asks itself one question: "Why should someone care?" If they cannot answer it, Blessfield John says, "we're probably not ready to publish."

The Gist Labs takes governance, policy and civic issues and turns them into clear, engaging content for Gen Z. "We believe our job isn't just to report the news," he says. "Our job is to translate it." Every day, he says, "policies are announced, laws are passed, and decisions are made that directly affect young people. But most never hear about them in a way that makes sense."

“Young people don't ignore civic information because they don't care. They ignore it because no one is speaking their language.”

Blessfield John

Each story gets its own format. A Context Drop explains the story behind the story, answering "How did we get here?" and "Why is everyone talking about this?" World Simplified takes a major global event and asks "What does this mean for us?" across Africa. Threads, made for X, carry the stories that need evidence and a proper narrative to land.

The habit came early. "Growing up, my parents encouraged me to read and pay attention to the news," he says. "While other young people were watching music videos or entertainment shows, I was watching the evening news." To a lot of his friends, that was weird. "As I got older, I realized they weren't rejecting the news because they didn't care," he says. "They were rejecting the way it was being delivered."

He studies Mass Communication at Pan-Atlantic University in Lagos. The Gist Labs is early, in his own account of it: he leads four volunteers, resources are limited, and he still carries most of the work himself. The editorial system is built. The voice is found. "Now we need the tools to reach more people," he says.

Beyond the digital content, The Gist Labs is building places for young people to talk about the issues it explains online. Its webinar series is meant to open up conversations about policy, governance and media, so that Gen Z can ask questions and exchange perspectives rather than only be told what is happening.

It is starting to take that offline too, through school and campus activations and university tours. The aim, he says, is a generation that is not only civically engaged but policy-aware, and better equipped to understand how institutional decisions reach their everyday lives.