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IRELAND HAS RANKED in 15th place on a new global survey of press freedoms – retaining its place from last year.
The World Press Freedom Index, produced by Reporters Without Borders (RWB), sees European countries continue to dominate the top placings – with Finland, the Netherlands and Norway leading the global index.
At the other end of the scale, Eritrea has the least press freedom, followed by North Korea and Turkmenistan – with the former country described as “a vast open prison for its people and lets journalists die in detention”.
In an accompanying publication, RWB said its system did not take into account the political system that operated in each country, but that it was evident that countries with sustained democracies tended to have a freer press which could offer more accurate news and information.
“In dictatorships, news providers and their families are exposed to ruthless reprisals, while in democracies news providers have to cope with the media’s economic crises and conflicts of interest,” said RWB secretary-general Christophe Deloire.
Ireland had ranked joint-first in 2009, but fell to 10th in 2010 after the introduction of laws which could lead to fines of up to €25,000 for blasphemy.
The overall theme of this year’s report is that countries which had been witness to Arab Spring protests – and which last year appeared to show signs of allowing a more open and unregulated press – had failed to deliver on that promise.
The United States is one of the biggest movers, rising 15 places to 32nd. Last year’s score had been dragged down by the clamping down on the Occupy Wall Street movement, which “did not spare reporters in the field”. The UK fell one place to 29th.
The Reporters Without Borders rankings are calculated by giving each country a score from 0 to 100 (0 being the best score) in categories including pluralism, media independence, self-censorship, laws, transparency and news production infrastructure.
The results are then averaged out to produce a single final figure.
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So they did not take account of the back slapping that goes on between Irish politicians & the Irish print & TV media then.
I am sick & tired of hearing “That’s another issue”, by RTE “news people”. It happened again this morning on Radio 1, when an oppisition TD tried to link the actions of two Government Departments together. He got cut off by the “That’s another issue”.
Listen here RTE, being the state broadcaster means the State of Ireland and not the Government broadcaster you think you are.
And what about all those regional newspapers around the country that are all owned by Independent Newspapers without stating this fact on the papers? A monopoly surely?
I’m not saying they are biased or bad, but it should be more transparent and perhaps a wider distribution of different owners…
The North Korean News Agency should really take notes from RTE on how to be a propaganda machine AND look like free unbiased journalism to the outside world.
David
RTE’s level of propaganda can only be bought not taught.
Eritrea has less press freedom than North Korea, that’s one subscription cancelled to the Eritrean Herald. I will miss the page 3 girl though.
But who is free from Murdock ?
At the moment maybe hell. But that can’t be for much longer can it?
You mean Murdoch.
No, it was clearly an A-Team reference, delivered with impeccable timing when absolutely no-one expected it, though perhaps it should read “Who’s going to free Murdock? (this time)”
The media here are softies when dealing with issues that matter.They skirt around issues.
Funny how loads of lefties on this site always point towards alternative news sources for unbiased reporting like Russia Today which is a publicly funded news channel. Hmmmmmm where does Russia come in the list??
Yeah RT censorship over Russian issues is obviously a concern but it can offer an important alternative perspective that we don’t get. DemocracyNow.org is probably the most independent and legitimate alternative I know.
I wonder if the government asked for this article to be published to make them look good?
No mention of good old Mother Russia. I imagine they’re not exactly topping the polls…
John you can clearly see on the map provided how bad Russia is
I wonder what the difference is between us and the UK in terms of press freedom. Propaganda for the Armed Forces and the Royal family may be part of it.
Correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t Norway very state controlled ?
Um, no; it’s a pretty conventional social democracy. It does have a nationalised oil industry, which is the only thing out of the ordinary I can think of that might be considered “very state controlled”. There’s certainly nothing that would prevent it from having a free press.
Wonder what position we held before Denis O Brien decided he needed to control what reporters felt about him??
I thought Ecuador would be top?!
“European countries continue to dominate the top placings ”
I dont know about this , If you look at past EU referendums or indeed any EU issues the Freedom to express anti EU views is non existant , you’ll never read anti EU views in any Irish Newspaper nor will you hear them on television.
how is this classified as freedom ??
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