FOUR months ago Daphne Caruana Galizia was assassinated in Malta. The pioneering investigative journalist had been leading the call for transparency and justice following the release of the Panama Papers and in November 2017 she was killed by a car bomb. This killing is part of a larger tragic picture of journalists and writers being persecuted for asking questions some groups want unasked and unanswered.

Unfortunately this is not an isolated case; writers around the world face threats for exposing wrongdoing and for simply doing their job. Whether through acts of violence as in the case of Malta or the systematic imprisonment, intimidation, and censoring of writers, media freedom is in a precarious position; the World Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters Without Borders found that in 2017, “the situation has worsened in nearly two thirds (62.2 per cent) of the 180 countries in the index.” Whether this is writers being imprisoned in Turkey following the failed coup attempt (according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, in 2017 Turkey was the world’s worst jailer, with 73 journalists behind bars), country-wide censorship taking place in countries such as Eritrea and China and journalists being attacked and killed in Russia, Syria, Mexico and a number of other countries, there have been few times in our history when it has been more dangerous to be a writer.

Here in Scotland we cannot be complacent. The UK’s position in the World Press Freedom Index dropped two places in 2017 to 40th place due to laws that enhance state surveillance and the lack of clarity around press regulation emerging from section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013. But beyond governmental policy, something more systemic has occurred that threatens to realign the relationship between writers, the state and the public. The advent of fake news (a weaponised term for propaganda) coupled with a polarised space for civic debate both online and off has significantly altered the space within which debate can take place.

When this comes at a time when there appears to be a deep-seated reluctance to deal with complexity or embrace a space that is home to a range of divergent and contradictory voices, the foundations that enable journalism and writing more broadly are being chipped away.

Now we turn to the acronym MSM, or mainstream media. This has become the brand used to discredit media reports or organisations that we disagree with.

An import from Trump’s America, it is Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter writ large across a complex and pluralist media landscape, robbed of any nuance or scrutiny towards key issues around bias, media ownership and plurality, diversity, media freedom and democratic participation. These are vital issues that need to be addressed to ensure that the media can operate effectively and represent the people of Scotland. But when these issues are largely left unexplored but used to write off outlets, instead of holding them to account to demand reform, discourse across Scotland is dependent on nothing more than a hollow and clumsy simplification that promotes a crude coding mechanism deployed to discredit the industry as a whole. When we have newsroom staff losing their jobs, more and more publications being owned by the same monopolistic corporate entities, polarised online speech that demonises women, the LGBTQ community and people of colour, to name a few and factual inaccuracies parading as fact, we need as many people calling for change as possible, not just labelling something as MSM. When media suffers so does our attempts to hold power to account.

Positions on single issues such as the Scottish independence debate, operate as lenses through which all issues are viewed and evaluated. This establishes a far too simplistic metric to explore Scottish society and navigate the civic space across the country. Should bias not be challenged? Should falsities remain unanswered? No is the answer to both of these questions, but this can and should be done without writing off and attacking entire institutions or journalists.

Many groups across Scotland have rightfully condemned the US President’s attacks on the free media as he labels anything critical as “fake” in an attempt to devalue opposition or criticism. Apart from bastardising the definition of the word “fake” it changes how we define media coverage, solely looking at output that strengthens or weakens group dynamics, as opposed to evaluating the truth or significance of the charge in the first place. People across Scotland condemned this and we should continue to do so, but if we internalise this approach, twist it towards our own ends, allow it to magnify our own prejudices, we erode our moral high ground; if we see in Trump’s rhetoric a threat to media freedom, we should not be blind to the effect our acts have.

Today we remember the courage of Daphne Caruana Galizia and writers like her around the world who risk their life to speak out. We need to do more to protect writers across the globe, but we can also look closer to home; how we engage with others, address differences and challenge prejudices and falsehoods.

The media is not a homogenised whole, nor should journalists or media outlets be given a free pass when they act unlawfully, but we need to be able to do more than condemn “media” as a whole, because once the dust settles, once we have determined that no outlet speaks to or for us, we will realise there is no one left to give voice to our struggles, giving those who threaten our democracy a silent and unopposed playing field to control.