In the digital era, media literacy is needs some major effort

It is a month and some weeks from what I believe will go down in history as one of the most consequential exchanges of power in modern history. The ousting of Bashar Al Assad by a coalition of rebel groups, led by a former al-Qaeda member, surprised and shocked the world, and the days since have been dense with reassurances, admonishments, and deep reflection about what Syria and Syrians will need in the years and decades to come.

We know so much about trauma and war in 2025, so much about reconciliation and the importance of building civic and institutional bonds — the backbone of any functional civilisation. In some states, social welfare and timely repair of potholes. In others, protection from drought, extremists, or maintenance of a certain standard of living. In every society, these fundamentals often fade into the background as other issues take centre stage — sometimes because they are universally accepted and deemed too important to debate, and other times because they become the focal point when society faces new challenges.

But in Syria, the institutions were the source of society’s ills. The government, the military, the press — all were held in a tyrant’s grip, with no consideration towards any other peaceful, functional, multicultural way of life. Every Syrian in Syria afraid and looking over their shoulder, every Syrian displaced or part of the hundred-year-old diaspora walking around with an albatross of confusion and frustration.

I was in high school when the Arab Spring and the Syrian Civil War began, and for the first time, I felt a surge of collective Middle Eastern or shared Arab identity — something I had never experienced before. Even though I had only spent three weeks in Syria as a child, that sense of unity left a lasting impression on me.

It wasn’t some sovereignty-threatening pan-Arabism, it wasn’t unity through hatred of a shared national or cultural enemy, it was unity through an acknowledgement of shared history and shared suffering, and the ability to help one another in the moment.

Through this lens and 13 years of war, a part of 50 years of repression from one family, a part of decades to a century longer of national humiliation by agents serving greed, power, or a colonial master, Bashar al-Assad is overthrown. My breath was held, and I slowly let air out of my lungs before I finally understood what it is Syrians seek and desire now — to build those same institutions, and the foundations of something entirely new.

Now, as a young half-European descended Canadian, I’m closer to the back of the line than the front when it comes to taking part in building that new society. Yet it would be shallow for me to not acknowledge the mark left on me by growing up in the Middle East, in an Arab country, in the Gulf, surrounded by Muslims and other Arabs when this war began, then as a journalist flailing to keep up with the new technologies and media platforms that are redefining the world faster than anyone can keep up.

I highlight Syria in this forum because it gets to the greater mission of journalism that I endeavour to embody in my professional life. We all have biases, but good journalism, or media literacy in general, is about the effort. Striving for genuine impartiality—truthful and fair, rather than the superficial “both-sides” approach common in the West—provides reassurance to the reader, the citizen, and the spectator. So for now, with what I have seen from Syria’s new leadership, I am reassured.