Slashdot Mirror
Press freedom
GarconDuMonde writes "Reporters San Frontiers has released it's third annual worldwide index of press freedom. Although the majority of top-ranking countries are from northern Europe, it is perhaps more interesting to note where countries such as Switzerland, Italy, the UK and the USA fall (1, 39, 28 and 22, respectively)."
... but don't practice it. It's pretty sad when you have to cringe every time you hear "... land of the free ..." Not that the U.S. is a bad place to live, mind you. The United States is the best place to live if you happen to like money.
Comparing the Western European countries with vast freedoms of the press to the dictatorial or communist countries with outright persecution of journalists is eye-opening. What is most disturbing is that in this day and age that there still exists repression of thought in some countries. Control the media and you can control the minds of your subjects. To have a truly free thinking society means that the media cannot be controlled.
The only problem with this is that it leads to significant growth of tabloid press. Look at Europe again with its outrageous papers like the Sun or Pravda. Just because the press is free does not mean that the information is better, just more voluminous.
Like the internet, anyone in a free press country can publish what they like. Like the internet, it is up to the reader to filter out the gems from the trash.
It's interesting to note the results and see why it's difficult to trust ANY news coming from Iraq.
How are we expected to know what's really going on when reporters feel threatened and ordinary Iraqis still don't trust the media after years of it being state controlled?
There are other documented examples or Arab gangs intimidating the press to sing their own tune and it pretty well rights off any ability for readers to discern between news versus propaganda.
Indy Media Watch-Proctologist of the Internet
"Reporters Without Borders compiled the index by asking its partner organisations (14 freedom of expression organisations in five continents), its 130 correspondents around the world, as well as journalists, researchers, jurists and human rights activists, to answer 52 questions to indicate the state of press freedom in 167 countries"
So this leaves lots unsaid. Basically, if correspondents say they don't have press freedom, they don't. Doesn't seem like a very scientific study to me.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
I think that the biggest threat to the free press in the United States today comes from the owners of media conglomerates, not the government. The continuing centralization of media ownership and the ongoing lobbying campaign in support of media consolidation leave us with an oligarchy of giant media groups. Often, the major media outlets of a city are owned by one or two large corporations, with interlocking ownership.
Under those conditions, the views of the owners are propagated without check, because there simply is no real independent mass media in most parts of the US today. They censor themselves, so the government doesn't have to.
"We have to go forth and crush every world view that doesn't believe in tolerance and free speech." - David Brin
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Here's what they had to say about the USA and Canada The two North American giants score well A police raid in Canada on the home of journalist Juliet O'Neil and the national regulatory authority's stand against the pan-Arab radio station Al-Jazeera and the local station CHOI FM downgraded the country to 18th place. Violations of the privacy of sources, persistent problems in granting press visas and the arrest of several journalists during anti-Bush demonstrations kept the United States (22nd) away from the top of the list. Really, we're being accused of minor things in the grand scheme of things... the top of the list contries are just small enough to be lucky to have not had any incidents.
The reason is that they allow themselves to be completely neutral. They don't care if they have George Bush's money in a bank account or Saddam Hussein's money, it's all the same to them.
When a country's government is neutral, it allows for the media to be more openly objective. These laws allow for equal treatment of everyone. The only problem with that is you are --I hate to sound cliche-- "helping terrorism."
Speak out against the Bush admin such as fighting against the deal with haliburton or prison treatment in either Iraq, or gitmo bay, or against the patriot act, or.....
See where you end up then.
Besides, I do not think it was about his being racists so much as trying to steer similar sentiments.
That's nothing. You can be jailed anywhere in the world if the US president thinks you're a terrorist. Give me a Danish judge any day.
Americans frequently claim that others are "jealous" of their freedom.
It's interesting that they use "jealous" rather than "envious" because "jealous" implies a limited resource (two women wanting to date the same man, for example) whereas "envious" implies an unlimited resource (envying your friend's new computer - new computers are available to anyone who wants to buy one).
There seems to be a subconscious fear in the United States that if the rest of the world gets "freedom" or "wealth" that the United States will somehow lose it.
There is no reason the whole world can't have high levels of freedom and a high standard of living and high levels of education.
The fear that the United States is preventing other countries from having these things seems to lead to the fear that if other countries get these things then the United States will lose them.
Of course, depsite what most Americans seem to think, the United States doesn't come in first in most measures of quality of life (freedom of press, per capita income, education level, etc.) anyway so it's not clear what they are so worried about.
That's nothing but conjecture. Come back when you have facts to back up your claims.
I always find comments about how "we don't have the freedom to insult Bush" that are doing just that...
ahhh, irony... That's like goldy isn't it?
I remember once this subject came up, and somebody pointed out that even though Canada scored higher, they actually do things such as filter pamphlets from certain political groups, including certain Jewish groups. Freedom of press and freedom of speach can be two very different things. Ideally, both rankings should be presented together, otherwise you give a lopsided picture.
Table-ized A.I.
You're looking at this too practically.
Freedom isn't much good, admittedly, if no one bothers to exercise it. What this article measures, however, is not the quality of information provided by the local press; rather, it is the ease with which journalists are able to obtain information in a country without the government interfering.
American journalists don't take much advantage of the US's open nature, because our private media are here to sell news, and Americans culturally just don't care about what's happening in the world. I really don't think there's much of a conspiracy here. The US is a huge country, the most powerful in the world, bordered by another huge country that speaks the same language it does. People in the US just don't care too much about the rest of the world unless it affects their lives directly, and the truth is that as far as US citizens are concerned, what happens in most other countries has little bearing on their daily lives.
This is hard to understand for a lot of Europeans, who mostly come from small countries that don't have the same natural resources the US does. For someone in France or Germany, what happens in Poland, Belgium, the UK, Turkey -- this all can and does affect their daily lives, economic stability, etc, in a way that is evident to the average joe. And so, not surprisingly, these people are better informed than Americans when it comes to world issues.
Now, the press freedom in the US is pretty good. By this I mean that a reporter from Le Monde can go to the US with the intent to write an exposé on American government corruption, for example, and will run into very little static doing it. A New York Post reporter, in a similar way, will have little trouble getting the information he wants in France, even if his piece is called "Cheese-eating surrender monkeys: How a country entirely populated by homosexuals manages to remain adequately populated." This is because both the US and France are very free countries. And while the journalists of other countries may use this to abuse them, they understand that keeping information available is important.
China and North Korea, on the other hand, will want to "approve" what you write before letting you do anything. They may even offer to write it for you.
That's what's meant by press freedom. Not "is the local press open and non-self-censoring" but rather "do journalists have the freedom to ask questions and get them answered without too much interference."
The US scores badly on the first but passably well (although not as well as I, as an American, would like) on the second. This article is about the second, not the first.
Being 22nd in the World, I am surprised that John Ashcroft didn't invoke the Patriot Act to suppress this report! I will put the USA up against any other country in the world on the number of press outlets that are operating within our borders, print, radio, TV and internet. The Freedom of the Press is so prevalent in Bush's USA that I am almost going deaf from the cacophony of screams of people saying their right to free speech is being abridged.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
The United States is now hated around the world because our citizens are so misinformed and ignorant about the world
No, your citizens have always been misinformed and ignorant. That is not why the US is now hate. It's now hated because it invades countries, kills innocent people, tortures people, and tries to impose its beliefs and way life on everybody else. That is why the USA is hated. But then again, being an American you might be too ignorant to know that.
BTW, nobody in the rest of the world gives a fuck about your freedom of the press or any other freedom. The rest of the world simply wants USA to leave them the fuck alone.
I can't see why a smaller country would have less corruption than a large one. Proportionally, of course. It seems more likely to me corruption would flourish in a small country, where everyone (who is anyone, at least) knows everyone.
If you actually look at the corruption ranking you'll see that there are plenty of small countries at the bottom, including Haiti at the very last position.
Are you? Most European countries have incorporated the European declaration on human rights into law, which mean I cannot be executed by my country. Can you say that?
You can't win Darth. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
And that says exacylt what? That freedoms of smaller countries can be ignored, because freedom in a larger country is somehow harder?
As long as we're talking percentages, we can compare. I'm Dutch, New York City might have a population and maybe even area larger then the Netherlands, but I don't care about that much. But if you use that fact to minimalise my opinion, then I'm very much reconfirmed in my current opinion about Americans.
Get a grip, it's not about size. Your post is just offensive to all Europeans, who all take Danmark very seriously.
Meanwhile, while we enjoy our freedoms and rights, please enjoy yours. As long as you keep thinking America is best in every respect, it will keep you from challenging issues, all while gloating about your so call 'Freedom of speech'. To me America is the land of double standards:
Most repressive on Sexual Content, but most teenage pregnancies.
Free gunownership, but most persons killed by gunfire.
Land of the free etc, but able to just sidestep all human right issues and internation treeties to arrest unproven 'terrorist'.
And somehow the world still has to take the USA seriously as global leader of democracy? Demockery is more appropriate.
Hans
Hans
This claim that if some larger or more influential countries would take the attitude of the Swiss is ignorant.
It is attitudes like that that resulted in the massacres in Rawanda. It is that very same attitude that is resulting in the same thing occuring in Sudan. Want more, Bosnia, Afghanistan, China, and even Checyna.
Seems to me that the real issue is not that some countries are more influential but WHICH countries that are and what they are doing.
I will take the current attitude of countries that do take action. Far better they do than we end up with millions more dead just because we were afraid to we might offend someone by acting up. Perhaps we can avoid another Hitler if we keep acting, after all he was harmless until he invaded Poland, right?
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
That means we can come to your country, shoot your sorry ass, and not get the death penalty. Cool!
The right to bear arms is to protect us from out-of-control governments. You say that the declaration on human rights protects you, but when push comes to shove, your rights aren't worth the paper they're written on. Defend yourself with sticks and stones.
At the same time, we (the US) created Saddam Hussein and are responsible for much of the power of the Taliban. Arguably we're creating the problems, or at least, some of them. The question is, are we actually helping the world more than we're hurting it, in this regard? Of course, a broader question is whether we help the world more than hurt it in all areas, but that's so subjective it's basically impossible to measure.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"