World press freedom ranked. My country is nr 1!

The BBQ Pit
#1

BBC:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2354077.stm

I partly agree. They could also say that in many countries “money talks”, by firms that are boycotting successfully media that criticizes anything that is a “no-no”, by treathing to take out all advertisement from the media or the group of media.
The companies has the right to put their money where ever they like. That is their freedom, but when there are organized boycotts, in order to hurt the media. That is questionable if we are for a free press. For Stalinists and nazis it’s OK. They are not for the free press in the first place.

I have personally once been targeted by a threat of “organized boycott”. It happened in Finland.
I just told very straight to the guys that I will print everything about an organized boycott, organized by people that speaks well of “freedom of the press”. I was told that I can’t prove anything and that they will sue me!
I told them to fuck themselves and that I knew that I would lose my case in court, but if they wish to go to court, I will not be against. I will continue my writing even from jail. And they will get more publicity that they ever have dreamt of.
To stop criticism of a media and preach for the free press does not go very well hand in hand. (Stalin would have been very proud of these guys.)
As a result they forgot the whole organized boycott, but we also had harder to get some advertisements in some parts of the country.

About ten years ago there was a reporter in Sweden that published some information that hurt the Swedish government. As a result the reporter was dragged to court, told that if she do not reveal the source of information, she gets 3 months in prison.
That was a very stalinistic draw from the government, the judge acting like a pimp selling his mother and sister in the street, selling all the principles of democracy, understanding nothing about the rights of the free press.
This kind of judge should be jailed.
She did tell the source! In my eyes she became a true media whore!
If You can’t sit 3 months, You should never be a reporter in the first place.

I may have a little bit extreme thoughts about what democracy/free press, means. People usually think that it is enough when there are free elections every now and then and that the government, in principle, gives a security for each individual. It’s not enough.
Most of the world has not even come to the level of America some 2-3 centuries ago. And the rest has not come further than that, even crawled backwards in many cases.
Cases like freedom of speech.
There is not a free press, anywhere. There is most often only the polished picture of it. The truth is never given at schools when they speak about free press. In every schoolbook, take any country, there is: “We have a free press”. Bullshit!

Even the press does not want to discuss their slave and master-relationship. They just stand there naked, pointing at he next guy (country), shouting: “Look! Der Kaiser is without clothes”.
The press have a lot of power, that is true, but it should always use it in a constructive way, which it does not.
The press uses it’s power wrongly in every country, but not necessary in every media.
Usually the “small papers” are best, monthly magazines and such, because the are less depending “in getting advertisement money from anywhere”. Often it is enough for them to get some advertisement and usually they are not run as a business, running after maximized profit etc. They are few, but they still are there.

Dear reader!
Please tell if Your media has anything about this BBC report.
Thank You beforehand and thank You for reading.

#2

Japan’s ranked #25. That sounds about right.

I haven’t found any stories about the Reporters Without Frontiers report, but this article below criticizing the ‘press clubs’ ran today. The government doesn’t specifically censor the news, but they only release information to the official press club. Anyone printing stories that are inconvenient or embarrassing suddenly finds their membership revoked, and they can now no longer get stories as quickly as their competitors. And no foreigners allowed.

http://www.japantoday.com/e/?content=news&cat=1&id=235677

#3

Iraq was #130? Why, I expected them to be easily in the top 10.

#4

Cool! Canada is 5th, immediately after the four-way tie for first!

#5

Cero: I didn’t interpret that as a four-way tie. I interpreted it as lazy numbering.

I would like to know exactly how they computed these. Was it simple tallyings of reported jailings/harassments/homicides and purely objective, or was it more subjective with the tallies contributing to the final score? How, exactly, did they account for the effects of media conglomerates?

Finally, did they give any thought at all to that bastion of gonzo libertarianism, the Internet? I think the US has much more Internet access per capita than Costa Rica, which means US citizens have more chance to speak freely (quite freely indeed… check out Usenet’s alt.* hierarchy sometimes… ) than Costa Ricans of similar relative means. I, myself, get most of my news from a mix of Internet sites, partly rounded up by Google News, partly accessed directly (such as Slashdot). Print media simply no longer makes an impact on how I get news. I suspect that’s becoming increasingly true for the average American.

#6

Yep. I don’t read newspapers anymore, and since I don’t watch TV, all of my news comes off the Internet. I was surprised by the US’s lower ranking because of the fact that the press seems to report everything, whether it’s a good idea or not.

But they did say it was because of arrests over reporters’ refusal to give out sources. I don’t know how accurate that information is, and this not being GD, I’m not tempted to research it (I’d make a great journalist, would I not? :wink: ).

#7

Drawn from this article on the homepage for Reporters Without Borders.

I agree with the listing of the US at 17th. Just yesterday, I was talking with my Mom, a former journalist, and we were both bemoaning the fact that thorough, unbiased news coverage of even US news events is only available from European news sources. All we get is soundbites, spin, and factoids.

#8

If this is a shade away from as good as it gets, than freedom of the press truly is in dire straits: http://www.aynrand.org/medialink/pr100302.shtml

#9

Yeah, I read that bullshit. It’s a damned joke or don’t you realize that the country’s at the top of the list…

                   DON"T HAVE ANYTHING TO REPORT!

Let’s see: in the news, in Finland today…uuuhh…hmmm…it’s cold!

the latest from Iceland…well, it’s cold here too!

etc. etc.

It’s not too hard to be free with the press when there’s not much to report!

Don’t get me wrong, I love these places and people, hell my ancestors came from all the countries listed in the top six. But, come on guys, think about it for a minute. It’s not like they’re in the thick of things. (which BTW, would be fine w/ me if US had a little more tranquility)

Not happening w/ all the shit we’re into here. Too many freedoms? I don’t know 'bout that…too much politics. That I can buy! Too many folks w/ $$$ as their goal in life, you bet! Too many countries looking at the U.S. and pointing fingers, saying “it’s their fault” or “they’re not all that”, definitely.

No, I don’t believe the propaganda. It’s just another invalid attempt to knock the US.

I wonder how the press in Europe would headline:

The United States pulls out of the UN and goes home. Promises to never interfere, intervene, or assist anyone from this day forth.
Don’t even ask…

#10

Seventeenth in the world is precisely the perfect amount of free press. There’s good reason IMO for arresting a reporter who refuses to give up his sources, if those sources are:

a) a threat to national security. Who in congress is leaking national secrets?

b) Dangerous criminals like Al Qaeda or the sniper (or if they have information to their whereabouts).

c) uh… hi Opal…? :confused:

#11

Yeah, there’s a good idea. Arrest the press whenever they might “threaten national security” by not giving up a source. That sounds like the kind of rationale slime like Nixon would have loved to abuse…

Kirk

#12

So, are you in favor of having absolutely, positively ZERO restrictions or qualifiers on freedoms?

Here, take this NRA pamphlet…

#13

Nurse! t-keela needs more meds.

#14

** t-keela** wrote:

Of corse there is nothing to report if You are not reading the Finnish press!
And they are writing about the world, not (only) just staring at their own navel. What the president is saying today etc.

What is discussed in the press in that particular country? The easiest way is to read the press in that country.

I translate here the main news in Helsingin Sanomat (Inter-Net-version), the biggest paper in Finland (news that I read the last 24 hours):

  • The Moscow drama
  • FBI looking for nukes in a plane
  • Pentagon ready to realise some “terrorists”
  • The Booker prize to Canada
  • The sniper drama in USA
  • A Finnish spy drama. (A Finn spying for DDR some decade ago).
  • About hackers trying to kill Internet
  • An Islamic party tried to make illegal in Turkey.
  • A minister that gave information about a “Finnish Enron-scandal”, an former minister accused for lying. The scandal is about 6 billion USD, going down the drain.
  • The criminal-police investigating this scandal; the telephone company is accused for looking for leaks about the company in a illegal way. It is about a sensation-book published in Internet, about this telephone-company and the lost 6 billions.
  • A Finnish minister (right-wing) attacking Prodi. Calling him “ridiculous”. The Finnish Prime minister (left-wing) tells that he also thinks like this.
  • Israelian spy-scandal.
  • A Hawk-airplane (of the Finnish air defense) shot at.
  • Boris Becker in court, getting sentenced
  • A bus and a train crasched in Australia.

There is much more international news that I did not read. And a lot of internal news, but I usually do not read them.
The real paper is about 100 pages each day, big format pages.
Got the picture?

** t-keela** wrote futher:
No, I don’t believe the propaganda. It’s just another invalid attempt to knock the US.

As I said before, there is nothing like a country with a free press. If You think there is, You are a victim of nationalistic propaganda.

Just as I asked in the OP, I ask again, is there anything about this in Your media. I sincerely want to know.

Without defending Saddam, he and his party Baath are a bunch of criminals, they should be in court etc. etc.
Anyway I dare to ask:
Have You ever seen a TV-program where the Iraqi diplomats can make questions to the US diplomats?
That I would like to see. And that happens no-where.
There has been many programs, I think, in many countries, where a commentator is asking a “homland-defender-administrator” what he thinks and there has not been any Iraquian diplomat present.
Sounds familiar?
Well, that is called propaganda.

In my country there is also propaganda and some guys lobbying.
But the free press is quite hard upon these guys. But not always. Not in any country.

But You are surely right about that the Internet should also be concerned. It is a very powerful media, but because it is world-wide, moderate or conservative, depending on what You are reading there. We can not say that this or that country is more “free” in the Internet, without looking at each countrys laws about it.

Look also how many Internet-connections per capita there is in each country. You might be amazed.

#15

t-keela - either you’re being ironic, or you’re displaying an staggering degree of ignorance.

[ol][li]Just because you don’t hear about it, doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.[]All countries are complex entities, with plenty to report on.[]If you’re not hearing it, it might be because your press doesn’t care.Furthermore, the world’s press also reports on other countries (as does yours) - or didn’t you realise that?[/ol]The BBC News site is just one of thousands that might give you a pointer. Check the LHS links for the many different editions of this site.[/li][quote]
It’s just another invalid attempt to knock the US.
[/quote]
Now, about those meds…

#16

wow. could you be anymore patronising?

As a native of one of the countries that finished above the United States I find your insinuation that important things only happen in America and that the rest of the world just look to America for its news is offensive in the highest.

How about you buy a paper that has a “world” section instead of the Weekly World News.
Better still, buy an atlas.
Its attitudes like yours that spoil America’s reputation abroad.

#17

I ment to write:
“It is a very powerful media, but because it is world-wide, moderate or anarchic, depending on what You are reading there.”

I wonder why I wrote “concervative” when I ment “anarchic”? :wink:
It is maybe the Freedom-Fighter December that always pops up in my mind.
It is good that he is still on the boards. I can continue to believe that SD is a free media. (Licking the boots of Cecil).

Is the word anarchy - anarchic(?) English? My electronical Collins is not working, but I hope You understand my rants.

#18

You silly person. Do you see attacks on America everywhere? Do you expect the US to be the top of every list? Maybe the list is flawed, maybe it’s bullshit but a attack on the US? What about every other country that didn’t come high up? Grow up for fuck sake and stop being so self centered and arrogant. Sometimes it’s not about you.

Cool to Ireland so high. Points finger “Ha Ha” :stuck_out_tongue:

#19

Allright guys, I had a good post w/ cites and the Hamster’s ate it awhile ago. If you’ll follow the link Henry gave you’ll find the organization that sponsored the rating. I don’t have my damned cites now, Thankyou very much! They got trashed too. I’ll go back and get’em though if I have to.

This “international organization”(Reporters w/out Borders) has branches in Germany, Austria, Belgium, France, the UK, Italy, Sweden, & Switzerland. It also works w/ members representing Afghanistan, Argentina, Bangladesh, Myanmar(Burma), Cuba, Eritrea, Haiti, Peru, Congo, Russia, Tunisia, & the Ukraine.

Notice who’s missing! They do admit to having an office in Washington and NYC but the reporters are Euro.

At the end of the original report, from France, there is a disclaimer to the results and admit they didn’t consider the quality of media in the poll. Results pertaining to the US were also admittedly biased since 911. The US media is also condemned because we “police” and “censor” the internet. Our reporters are labelled biased and not objective in their reports due to security measures taken since the attack.

Anyway, this is just an example of who/what group put out that so-called ranking.
Don’t get me wrong, freedom of the press is a great thing. I salute any and all that have it. Just don’t believe everything you read.

BTW most reporters can write whatever they want about somebody else’s new. ie.(Finland news about U.S.) That’s not what gets censored. It’s news about one’s own country that’ll get canned. ie.(Iraq news about Iraqi crimes) (US news about US war atrocities) (Irelands news about Irish…)

Right?

Oh, when you read the original report, (if you do) Notice how pissed off the writer is about the US not sending actual photos of the dead bodies retrieved at the WTC. They wanted to televise the corpses w/out consent or consideration to the families.

These are the guys (reporters w/out borders) saying the US has an inferior media. While the BBC rates the US as outstanding.

Peace…t-keela and I always take my meds, thankyou

#20

They are still journalists working in America.

from the article on the JWB site

It is giving reasons why the US came 17th. It seems a fairer report than youmake it out to be.

Or do you just want to see injustice against America?

I cant find the actual report itself on their site. could you link to it?