E-Paper
Speaking free
This is one index where Western democracies aren?t necessarily better off than their poorer cousins.
This is one index where Western democracies aren’t necessarily better off than their poorer cousins. The Freedom of Press Index, released by Reporters without Borders, has listed 167 countries with India ranked at 106. While northern European countries and Canada still top the list, they have as company in the top 60 some of the smallest and poorest nations — Benin, Mali, Bolivia, East Timor among others. While this may turn on its head arguments that stable democracies are a must for freedom of press, we wonder why India, whose free-wheeling press is a legend, figures where it does.
France has slipped to 30 from 19 last year because of raids on media offices and measures to weaken privacy of sources. Central and West Asia remain the ‘toughest regions to work in’. And North Korea retains its position at the bottom of the list. With only State media, ‘news’ is little more than official propaganda here. As the report elaborates, ‘harassment, psychological pressure, intimidation and round-the-clock surveillance are routine’. Thanks to King Gyanendra, Nepal finds itself at a lowly 160.
But most intriguing is freedom of press as practised by the US. That the US finds mention twice in the list is, perhaps, reflective of its doublespeak. It has tumbled 20 notches to stand at 44 (on American territory) — mainly because of the legal moves to force into the open journalistic sources. It finds a second special mention at no. 137 under the head ‘US (in Iraq)’. Does that mean that when reporting from outside its territory, US press freedom is worse than Jordan (60) and Afghanistan (125) and only a notch better than Russia (138)? You decide.