Saturday, October 25, 2008
Yay! We’re number 36!
by Larry Geller
‘Way to go! Reporters Sans Frontieres has rated the USA 36th in the world in press freedom, up from 48 last year. That’s a great improvement! It puts us in a tie with Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cape Verde, South Africa, Spain, and Taiwan in the 36th spot, according to this article in the Huffington Post.
(thanks to Shannon Rudolph on the Big Island for her email pointing to this article)
According to the survey, the index "measures the state of press freedom in the world. It reflects the degree of freedom that journalists and news organisations enjoy in each country, and the efforts made by the authorities to respect and ensure respect for this freedom."
The ranking examines "every kind of violation directly affecting journalists (such as murders, imprisonment, physical attacks and threats) and news media (censorship, confiscation of newspaper issues, searches and harassment). And it includes the degree of impunity enjoyed by those responsible for these press freedom violations."
The article indicates that yes, they did take into account the arrests of journalists during the Democratic and Republican national conventions. Despite that, we’re improving, they say.
Let’s hope that after Nov. 4, the trend will continue (notice how all hope for so many things is riding on the elections. . .).
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