Ever tuned into the news and thought “what on Earth is going on?”

It can be hard to keep track. Every day, a new story breaks. We forget about what happened yesterday. Eventually, we don’t even know why what’s happening is happening. 

And that’s a problem. If we don’t understand the world’s events, we can’t react to them - or learn from them. We become easily lured under the spell of disinformation which suggests all problems are simple, and so they just need simple solutions. We fail to challenge false narratives and we pick sides on issues which are not black and white.

Hundreds of years of politics, history, geography and sociology still inform the world around us. If we ignore that, we cannot address the problems millions of people are facing. Responding to the world’s issues requires an understanding of how they came about.

whatonearthisgoingon.co.uk aims to provide that understanding. It boils the news down to its basics: what is happening - and why is it happening? How have we got to these critical moments? Who are the big players and what do they want? How are we - as everyday people - informing global affairs through our voting patterns, our demographics and our silence?

Our news aims to be impartial, educational and factual. We seek to cut through the noise, not add to it, so that you can sift the fact from the fiction. Anything which remains open for debate will be labelled as such.

If you believe our work can be improved, or you wish for us to cover a particular story, please get in touch.

All our contributors are NCTJ accredited with qualifications in journalism.