Like the rest of the country, I have had much occasion to reflect on the contribution of journalists to the functioning of a democracy. I have had even more reason to reflect on this having been given the task by my political group within the European Parliament, the EPP, to report closely on the matter of media freedom in Europe.

The concentration of power in a polity is a temptation not only for those who would grasp it and keep it. It is also an attraction to a voting population frustrated by ineffectiveness, real or perceived, of the complex institutions that are supposed to balance each other out.

This is the 20th-century European story after all: the reason Europe chose the path of integration. Totalitarianism grew out of a democratic choice made by conscious and awake electors for whom democracy had brought economic hardship and dissatisfaction with the workings of society.

These are fading memories as new generations replace others. And the new generations appear to be flirting with reliving this history. Trumpian political discourse is the logical inheritance of an isolationist, irrational tradition that has walked out of the fringe into mainstream acceptance.

Here in Europe, too, facts are becoming optional, truth a mere version that one can swap and replace if a more convenient option can be found.

Checks and balances, constitutional structures, rules and treaties are derided, ridiculed and accused of being barriers to the exercise of the popular will and therefore undemocratic. After all this is the essence of the anti-EU rhetoric that is splitting us up from Britain and that challenges us from what remains within.

In Malta, too, this argument has become painfully mainstream. Government ministers have gone on record saying that laws should not inhibit the power of a democratically elected executive.

When such a concentration of power is supported by a majority that is oblivious to renouncing its rights, the mortal danger to democracy is no longer perceptible. Governments can wear the mantle of democracy even as they suffocate it. They cannot be trusted with protecting media pluralism and journalistic independence. Though they will continue to pay it lip service.

Public broadcasting is insufficiently protected from the intervention of the executive that protects its narrow interests over the needs of the community

In a country where the government overtly ignores and covertly blesses actions by conglomerates to chill the press into silence, the crumbling of democratic freedoms cannot be ignored. We are living in a country where a journalist is assassinated for speaking truth to power, the investigations into her allegations are suppressed, and the investigations into her elimination are entrusted to people who cannot guarantee that they have an interest in finding answers and telling us who commissioned the assassination.

Over four months have gone by since the assassination, and no one is any the wiser about who ordered the heinous act to be carried out. No wonder that civil society has decided to gather next to the memorial set up in her honour every month to remind the government that this is the cry of justice that we shall not be silenced from making as loud and clear as remains needed and necessary. Her family is ignored except to slander them.

Re-examining media freedoms in Malta and generally in Europe is not an academic exercise. It is an urgent salvage operation that may very well be too late.

The mission of public broadcasting is insufficiently protected from the intervention of the executive that protects its narrow interests over the needs of the community. Institutional protection of journalists is weak and often unaffordable.

To some extent other institutions, like Parliament, the judiciary, the bureaucracy, local government, trade unions, employers and other lobbies can protect themselves or have resources and access to the protection of the courts and the institutions of Europe. Journalists far less so. Coupled with this is their exposure to violence and physical harm.

A free press that seeks the truth contrasts with the powerful who treat their disciples with contempt and rely on a hoped-for inability to discern the truth from outright lies. We must be equipped with a critical understanding of how to distinguish reliable sources from lying factories.

Our capacity to be democratic citizens must be prepared for the reality that surrounds us: a power that legitimises its existence by the support it mobilises for itself, whatever it takes to do so.

In the face of this new reality, a free media is our only real hope that the honest discovery of what the powerful would rather hide can keep the heart of democratic will beating.

We cannot look away from the dangers journalists are exposed to. We cannot look away from the barriers they are faced with in order to bring to us information.

We cannot shirk our responsibility to empower and protect a free and pluralistic media.

Francis Zammit Dimech is a Nationalist Party MEP.