From the RFS entry on Surinam, position 22: "“public expression of hatred” towards the government is punishable by up to seven years in prison under a draconian defamation law. The controversial Dési Bouterse, who became president again in 2010 in an election, has managed to be amnestied for the 1982 murders of 15 political opponents including five journalists."<p>RFS on Jamaica at 10: " The very occasional physical attacks on journalists must be offset against this, but no serious act of violence or threat to media freedom has been reported since February 2009, a month that saw two cases of abuse of authority by the Kingston police."<p>Or even Ireland at 9: "... defamation lawsuits are common. Finally, interviewing police sources has been virtually impossible since the Garda Siochana Act of 2005, which bans police officers from talking to journalists without prior authorization."<p>Not a little biased are we? Amnesty for murdering journalists isnt my idea of freedom of the press, nor are defamation law suits, or a prohibition against interviewing the police.
coming in at #22 is Surinam with a "“public expression of hatred” towards the government is punishable by up to seven years in prison under a draconian defamation law."<p>The ranking for Slovakia at 12 seems at odds with its description "Defamation is punishable by up to eight years in prison, the harshest penalty for this offence in the European Union. Many legal actions have been brought by businessmen, politicians and judicial officials. Prime Minister Robert Fico initiated several during his first term. Censorship was tightened in 2014 by the adoption of a regulation limiting the number of journalists with parliamentary accreditation, restricting their movements within the parliament and banning them from photographing the personal property of parliamentarians."
I personally won't read to much into this, RFS has a very single minded political agenda, Mongolia has more press freedom than Japan and Italy, Georgia (in which the government closes TV stations at will) has more freedom than Greece, and Lebanon's press has apparently more freedom than Israel's.
A free press and whistleblowers are essential to democracy.<p>Without a free press & whistleblowers democracy cannot function.<p>It is clear from the last five years of leaks that elected governements around the world feel they must act in secret because they suspect the electorate would not approve.<p>Without much more oversight this will worsen.<p>Free Chelsea Manning. Pardon Edward Snowden. Drop the inditement against Julian Assange. Offer sanctuary to Mossack Fonesca's whistleblower. Lead by example.
Link to the ranking : <a href="http://rsf.org/en/ranking" rel="nofollow">http://rsf.org/en/ranking</a><p>Surprising to see that Singapore is at 154 and there is Eritrea below North Korea.
"Reporters Without Borders retracts Yasuda hostage comments"
<a href="http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/12/29/national/reporters-without-borders-retracts-yasuda-hostage-comments/" rel="nofollow">http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/12/29/national/reporte...</a><p>I am starting to think of them as just another irresponsible NGO.
Hard to believe India is at 133. The kind of manufactured news that is peddled by the Mainstream Media in India with no responsibility, I think it should be #1 !!<p>Also, going through the methodology, I couldn't figure out which Indian languages are included in the survey, so, its quite possible that a major chunk of the Indian media was left out from the survey just because the translations were only in Hindi (thats my assumption).
Japan is 72nd, and their biggest beef is "記者クラブ" (Journalist Club) were established domestic media gets precedence in press conferences.<p>It partly looks like political maneuvering to get more question time in them. I wonder how other countries do it. I heard there are "first question rights" and "first rows" in the US also, so old hands like Helen Thomas had advantage.
Something which likely contributes to this rank or at least gives the appearance of it is this:<p>These 6 Corporations Control 90% Of The Media In America<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/these-6-corporations-control-90-of-the-media-in-america-2012-6" rel="nofollow">http://www.businessinsider.com/these-6-corporations-control-...</a><p>Note this article is from 2012.
"Media does not spread free opinion; it generates opinion." --Oswald Spengler <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_of_the_West" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_of_the_West</a>