US = 47th -- 14.00
In order to have a bigger spread in the scores and increase the differentiation between countries, this year’s questionnaire had more answers assigning negative points. That is why countries at the top of the index have negative scores this year. Although the point system has produced a broader distribution of scores than in 2010, each country’s evolution over the years can still be plotted by comparing its position in the index rather than its score. This is what the arrows in the table refer to – a country’s change in position in the index compared with the preceding year.
Several European countries fall far behind rest of continent
The index has highlighted the divergence of some European countries from the rest of the continent. The crackdown on protests after President Lukashenko’s reelection caused Belarus to fall 14 places to 168th. At a time when it is portraying itself as a regional model, Turkey (148th) took a big step backwards and lost 10 places. Far from carrying out promised reforms, the judicial system launched a wave of arrests of journalists that was without precedent since the military dictatorship.
Within the European Union, the index reflects a continuation of the very marked distinction between countries such as Finland and Netherlands that have always had a good evaluation and countries such as Bulgaria (80th), Greece (70th) and Italy (61st) that fail to address the issue of their media freedom violations, above all because of a lack of political will. There was little progress from France, which went from 44th to 38th, or from Spain (39th) and Romania (47th). Media freedom is a challenge that needs addressing more than ever in the Balkans, which want to join the European Union but are suffering the negative effects of the economic crisis.
USA and Romania joint 47th oh and Argentina too. South Africa above them, El Salvador too.
As for the UK; Costa Rica and Namibia are ahead of us.
This is very revealing and entirely fits in with what we see reported on ATS, there is no freedom of media anymore in the US or UK.
en.rsf.org
(visit the link for the full news article)
edit on 27-1-2012 by spacedonk because: (no reason given)
