WE know from Sigmund Freud and a hundred horror movies that the scariest moment of all is the ‘return of the repressed’, the moment when the viewer relaxes, emotionally exhausted in their seat, believing that the monster is dead only for it to spark back to life again, more frightening and more vengeful than ever.

It is beginning to feel like this is the horror movie of Covid-19.

Last week has been a low point for those who want to play down the pandemic. The weight of evidence is stacking up, news from Europe is not good, and it looks like worse days are yet to come. So, spare us the fake trauma of a digital Christmas, we are entering a difficult and dangerous phase in Scotland’s battle with Coronavirus. The pandemic has scythed through our journalism too, separating wheat from chaff.

There has been some good journalism in both print and on television, that has taken complex epidemiological information and converted it into popular language, but equally there have been lazy and cynical attempts to undermine the health message to score political points.

At its worst, some journalism has been an unedifying parade of smugness – posing barely credible questions to try to trick the First Minister or goad her into over-reaction. The daily health briefings were meant to be a chance to hold Nicola Sturgeon to account but in many cases, they have rebounded fiercely in the faces of some journalists.

Holding power to account is one of the most laudable ambitions of journalism but when it deteriorates into nothing more simply being a pest, it erodes trust in journalism – and risks exposing individuals and their titles at a time of serious public concern.

I have no doubt that there will be much to investigate after this is all over – failures within the care-home system, the deleays in getting money to the needy and the backlog the pandemic has created for those that need non-Covid medical care.

Last week I have seen three prominent journalists demanding respect on the social media carnival we call Twitter. I’m not sure it’s the best place to be arguing for the preciousness of your profession, but even if it were, it invites a very obvious response. Journalism is not a homogenous concept nor are the various branches of journalism worthy of the same respect.

Travelling at risk to a warzone to report on the factionalism of a remote part of the world is hardly comparable with ripping off one of Kim Kardashian’s Instagram posts and recycling it as ‘news.’ Spending hours of investigative research into the hidden off-shore funds of the arms industry is hardly the same as covering an away game at Raith Rovers.

Going undercover among the child traffickers of Romania is a slightly more challenging than writing a preview of next week’s Bake Off. These examples may all be journalism, but it makes a mockery of concepts like truth and impartiality to bundle them together as if they are the same thing.

The one thing journalism is not, is a holy shrine beyond the opinion of mere mortals. Since the rise of social media, journalists have come under increased scrutiny, some of it is unedifying, but much of it is in the noisy spirit of public debate and raw democracy that we supposedly crave. I personally do not like crude arguments on social media but then again, it’s not where I go for erudition.

In a desperate battle to sell copies in a challenging era, some newspapers have pursued a form of cartoon journalism, likening the National Clinical Director to Grinch or Ebenezer Scrooge, or morphing the Education Secretary’s image into a potato head. It may work as brazen comedy but it’s hardly the heightened discourse of the Pulitzer Prize. If you want to work composing third-rate cartoons that’s fine but don’t shield yourself behind the monument of journalistic integrity.

LAST week Peter Smith of ITV News was on the receiving end of some robust online scrutiny. At a Covid-19 briefing, he had not pushed his mute button quickly enough before an offscreen colleague, talked unwisely about “taking a swipe” at Sturgeon. It is probably not that important in the scheme of the First Minister’s working week and it was certainly not voiced by Smith himself but it left many suspicions hanging in the air that journalists are gaming the daily briefings. Some questions have been patently absurd, others muddled and incoherent and too many of them have been posited to drive a wedge along constitutional lines.

It seems that for some journalists, it’s a good day when you can go to print arguing that Sturgeon has slipped up and is putting independence before peoples’ lives. It is such a transparently craven line which shows up journalism as being manipulative and ideologically driven rather than fair and transparent. We have all heard those kinds of questions and they consistently undermine the values that journalists rally around when they imagine that they belong to a profession holding the sword of truth aloft.

Nor is television journalism immune to lazy tropes either. I am not a fan of canvassing opinion in the street. What ostensibly looks like openness is often nothing more than moans and grumbles given status by the presence of a camera.

One favoured item is sowing the seeds of public confusion about the tier system. Over this side of the road is Glasgow City and over this side is East Renfrewshire – what are locals supposed to do? Answer – go to your fridge, remove the magnet, and look at your council tax bill, if it is from Glasgow City Council then that’s probably where you live.

What I particularly resent about items of this kind is that they have the veneer of cleverness but when laid bare address a problem that maybe impacts around 50 people and yet it is extrapolated as a problem for all. We are entering a phase of the pandemic that may throw up significant new challenges for Scotland. France and Spain have imposed a new state of emergency. The Swiss health system is under such strain they have asked for volunteers to step forward. The Polish president and the Bulgarian prime minister have both tested positive. Italy has moved to a new level of restrictions including many that are now familiar to us.

Germany has been forced into new regulations. Christmas markets are dropping like flies. None of which is good news for the phalanx of Scottish football fans who look to the German Bundesliga for inspiration and insist our game should open to supporters.

It is no longer a strong argument. From this weekend, and throughout November, fans will be excluded from Bundesliga matches, in a bid to slow Germany’s soaring infection rate.

THE runes from Europe do not look good, the returning virus will ask serious questions of our NHS, our political leadership, and of our journalists. The latter have a role to play – they can ask tough questions or puerile questions, they can shine a light on systematic failures or pursue endless nonsense about whether a bistro is a café or a restaurant.

Journalists can reflect on the complex challenges facing our political leaders and hold them to account or they can paint crude cartoons.

Scotland deserves a journalism that is yet to come, one cut free from the established systems of power and press ownership, it may be a long time coming but in the meantime it would be a good thing if those that want to speak truth to power also spoke truth to themselves and their own employers.