Reporters Without Borders has released its latest annual Press Freedom Index. It ranks 173 countries and reflects the degree of freedom that journalists and news organisations enjoy. It also looks at the efforts made by the authorities to respect press freedom and ensure respect for this freedom.
South Africa’s ranking has improved by five places since 2007, with a tie ranking of 36 this year. Other African countries in the top 50 include: Namibia (23), Mali (31), Cape Verde (36) and Mauritius (47). The top three countries over all are Iceland, Luxembourg and Norway; closely followed by Estonia, Finland and Ireland.
Here are a couple of useful things which you may not know about the Index:
- It measures press freedom and not the quality of the press.
- It does not look at human rights violations in general; just press freedom violations. These include harassment, censorship, the legal framework of the media, the independence of the public media, internet restrictions and financial pressure.
- It is based solely on events between 1 September 2007 and 1 September 2008.
- It takes account of abuses attributable to armed militias, clandestine organisations and pressure groups as well as to the state.
- A questionnaire with 49 criteria to assess press freedom in each country was sent to Reporters Without Borders’ partner organisations (18 freedom of expression groups in all five continents), to its network of 130 correspondents around the world, and to journalists, researchers, jurists and human rights activists.
- Some countries were not included because of a lack of reliable, confirmed data.
- Where countries tied, they are listed in alphabetical order.
Click here to see the full 2008 index.
