Gaza Reporter Asks: Can News Still Change the World?

Palestinian journalist Plestia Alaqad documented 45 days of destruction in Gaza for millions of social media followers. Now she is asking a difficult question: can news still change the world? Alaqad survived the war while reporting from inside Gaza. Her posts showed daily life under bombardment to a global audience. After 45 days, she stopped. She now describes "media fatigue"—the exhaustion that comes when audiences grow tired of endless bad news. Her job, she says, was simply "to exist"—to be a witness when so much was being destroyed. Alaqad is now trying to start fresh. But she wonders whether journalism can still move people to act, or whether the world has learned to scroll past.