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Freedom House: Press Freedom at Lowest Point in More Than a Decade

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The NGO’s annual rating for global press freedom slides to the lowest point in 12 years, with Bangladesh, Turkey, France, and Serbia among countries with big declines…

Freedom House logoBy Paul Marszalek
BBG Office of Strategy and Development

Freedom House has released its Freedom of the Press 2016 report this week, tracking an overall decline in press freedom and estimating that only 13% of the world’s population has access to a Free press.

As defined by the NGO, a Free press is one “where coverage of political news is robust, the safety of journalists is guaranteed, state intrusion in media affairs is minimal, and the press is not subject to onerous legal or economic pressures.”

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Free Press countries are represented in green, gold Partly Free, and Purple Not Free. Click map for a larger view.

By way of example, the United States ranks just 28th out of 199 countries and territories, with the “worst of the worst” being Equatorial Guinea, Belarus, Cuba, Eritrea, Crimea, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and perennial laggard North Korea bringing up the rear.

Year-over-year declines and low ratings can happen as a result not only of governmental pressure and censorship (China, Iran),  but also thanks to criminal activity such as Mexican drug gangs targeting journalists, or similarly, terrorist activity such as the Charlie Hebdo attacks in France.

More often than not, however, poor rankings are due to repressive regimes.

Global access to a Free Press.

Global access to a Free Press by population and by country. Click for a larger view.

Freedom House almost created a new category of abuser this year in calling Russia an “innovator of modern state propaganda.”

The report goes on, “Domestically, the Russian government reoriented the focus of its misinformation machine from Ukraine to President Vladimir Putin’s newest foreign exploit, the military intervention in Syria,” while simultaneously squeezing online blogs and news outlets — the last open space for free expression in Russia.

While the annual report highlights a group of usual suspects, it also flags backsliding in countries that might come as a surprise. This year, Argentina, India, Poland, Ukraine, and Ghana are among Free or Partly Free countries that made the “Countries to Watch” list.

The report also highlighted major press crackdowns and imprisonments of journalists in Azerbaijan and Turkey.

Learn more via Freedom House’s extensive report.


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