New survey suggests press freedom declining globally

30/04/2008

Cyprus and Greece are the only Southeast European countries classified as "free" in Freedom House's new annual survey of worldwide media independence.

(Freedom House, AP, AFP, RFE/RL - 29/04/08)

The former communist countries show the biggest relative decline in media freedom in the world, chiefly because of a perceived politicisation of public broadcasting, the report says. [Freedom House]

For the sixth year in a row, global press freedom suffered a clear decline in 2007, rights group Freedom House said on Tuesday (April 29th), as it released its new annual survey of media independence in the world.

"For every step forward in press freedom last year, there were two steps back," said Jennifer Windsor, executive director of the US-based non-profit organisation. "When press freedom is in retreat … restrictions on other freedoms may soon follow."

Journalists almost everywhere confronted an increasingly hostile environment, the group said in its 2008 survey of 195 countries and territories, published just days before World Press Freedom Day on May 3rd.

The media in those countries receive a total score from 0 (best) to 100 (worst) based on an assessment of the legal, economic and political freedom they enjoy. Of the 195 countries and territories covered by the survey, 72 scoring 0 to 30 belonged to the group of those with "free" media. Fifty-nine countries scoring 31 to 60 ranked as "partly free", while 64 with scores between 61 and 100 fell into the "not free" group.

Only 18% of the world's population live in countries with free media, Freedom House said, singling out Western Europe as the region that ranked highest for media freedom. Finland and Iceland lead the global rankings. New Zealand is the only non-Western European country among the top ten in the world.

Of the Southeast European (SEE) countries, Cyprus did best globally. It ranked 40th along with Belize, Dominica, France, Latvia and Slovakia, all scoring 22.

The only other SEE country classified as "free" was Greece, which tied for 56th with Ghana and Mali.

All Balkan countries belonged to the "partly free" group. Of them, Bulgaria ranked highest with a score of 33, placing it 76th in the world. Croatia tied for 78th with Botswana.

Montenegro tied for 81st with East Timor and Mongolia.

Serbia, scoring 39, tied for 84th with Antigua and Barbuda, Bolivia and the Dominican Republic.

Romania tied for 94th with Panama and Peru. Freedom House faulted it for "a Constitutional Court decision that re-instated criminal defamation".

Of the other SEE countries, Bosnia and Herzegovina tied for 97th with the Philippines.

Macedonia tied for 100th with Argentina. Both scored 47.

Albania and Turkey ranked lowest among the SEE countries. Albania placed at 105th, while Turkey tied for 106th with Congo-Brazzaville, Honduras and Mexico.

Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union collectively showed the largest region-wide setback, Freedom House said.

"Russia remained one of the most dangerous countries in the world for the media," it said.

The world's three worst-rated countries were Turkmenistan, Burma and North Korea.