Report: U.S. Ranks 41st in Global Indexof Press Freedom – Behind Ghana
Does this come as a surprise to anyone?
Each year since 2002, Reporters Without Borders has released its World Press Freedom Index. The ranking, according to the group, assesses media markets across the world to gage their level of independence, pluralism, transparency, abuses and self-censorship.
Given that a recent study reveals three-quarters of Americans distrust their media, and given what we now know about the depth of American mainstream media's corruption and collusion with the Clinton campaign, it is no wonder that among 180 countries in the world, the U.S. ranks 41st on the World Press Freedom Index.
We rank 41st -- that means the United States media is less transparent, less independent and more abusive than media outlets in Tonga, Ghana, and Namibia. CNSNews providesmore on the ranking:
The top 10 countries for freedom of the press, from one to 10, are Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, New Zealand, Costa Rica, Switzerland, Sweden, Ireland and Jamaica.
The countries with the least press freedom, numbered from 170 to 180 are Yemen, Cuba, Djibouti, Laos, Sudan, Vietnam, China, Syria, Turkmenistan, North Korea and Eritrea.
The survey attributes the overall decline in freedom to the "increasingly authoritarian tendencies of governments in countries such as Turkey and Egypt, tighter government control of state-owned media, even in some European countries such as Poland, and security situations that have become more and more fraught, in Libya and Burundi, for example."
Frighteningly, it sounds more like they are describing the U.S. than Turkey, Egypt and Burundi. One of the reasons WRB gave the U.S. the ranking it did was the press' treatment of whistle-blowers like Wikileaks.
The survey states that religious influence is a core issue afflicting independent media (likely in reference to the Islamic countries on its list), but the index also points to "'oligarchs'" who are "buying up media outlets and are exercising pressure that compounds the pressure already coming from governments."
Again, one never thought that such a statement -- one that was likely intended to reference countries like Uzbekistan -- could be viewed as prescient to the United States and its media today.
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