Joe Carrollreports on this year's Freedom House media survey, which sees Asia and Africa as 'not free'
PRESS FREEDOM around the world continued to decline in 2007, the latest global survey has revealed.
The annual Freedom House survey released to mark World Press Freedom Day makes depressing reading. Virtually the whole of Asia and Africa are reported to endure a "not free" press and broadcast media environment. Most of Latin America is regarded as only "partly free".
Countries listed as enjoying a "free" press include the whole of western Europe, the US, Canada, Australia, Japan and India.
Among the "free press" countries in western Europe, Ireland is ranked in 12th place out of 25, an improvement on the previous year. A country's freedom rating is calculated on 23 questions covering the legal, political and economic environments. A score of 0 to 30 places the country in the free press group; 31 to 60 in the partly-free group and 31 to 60 in the not-free press group. Ireland's rating last year was 15. Italy barely made it into the free-press group with a rating of 29.
Freedom House, which is based in the US and conducting the surveys since 1980, describes the reform of Ireland's defamation law as an improvement on the existing legislation, but also expresses reservations about the proposed privacy law. There is also reference to the case where The Irish Times has been accused by the Mahon tribunal of publishing classified information in 2006. The newspaper has appealed an adverse finding by the High Court to the Supreme Court.
The latest survey notes that there was some improvement in the region with the least amount of press freedom: the Middle East and North Africa. These gains are attributed to "a growing number of journalists who were willing to challenge government restraints, a pushback trend seen in other regions as well." This has helped to move Egypt up into the "partly-free" category.
Out of 195 countries and territories, 72 (37 per cent) were rated "free", 59 (30 per cent) "partly free", and 64 (33 per cent) were "not free", a decline from 2006.
But improvements in a small number of countries "were far overshadowed by a continued, relentless assault on independent news media," according to Karin Deutsch Karlekar, senior researcher and managing editor of the survey. "We are particularly concerned that while abuses of press freedom continue unabated in restrictive environments such as China, threats are also apparent in countries with an established record of media freedom and in newer democracies in central Europe and Africa."
A more positive note in the survey came under the heading "new media" where it was noted that "satellite television and internet-based news and networking sources are an emerging force for openness in restricted media and environments, as well as a key target for government control". Ironically, the launch of the survey in London last week coincided with a debate there sponsored by Unesco and the Frontline Club on the motion that "New media is killing journalism".
The motion was defeated by 43 votes to 13, but only after strong criticism from some speakers about how blogging on the internet could lead to the "death of the professional journalist". Andrew Keen, author of Cult of the Amateur: How the Internet is killing culture, cited the "Huffington Post" website as an example.
Founder Arianna Huffington, an influential commentator and political activist in the US, publishes unpaid opinion pieces from a large network of her contacts on the website which also provides free links to relevant news stories from newspaper and magazines.
As this trend continues, Mr Keen said, traditional news media will find it increasingly hard to compete commercially. Unpaid bloggers will gradually replace trained, professional journalists.
However, other speakers pointed out that the internet provides journalists with unrivalled access to information and with the means to communicate to a much wider public than their newspapers' ordinary readership. Nazenin Ansari, editor of Kayhan, a weekly Persian language newspaper based in London, praised the internet for the way it allows journalists to obtain information in spite of repressive regimes such as that in Iran. Other speakers with experience as foreign correspondents also pointed out how the internet provides instant news about events that the authorities often want to censor. Tibet and Burma were two examples.
For the Freedom House report see: www.freedomhouse.org