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US Slips Again In Freedom of the Press Ranking
npwa writes to tell us Reporters Without Borders has released their annual worldwide press freedom index. While developing nations like Haiti and Mauritania continue to gain ground developed nations like France, Japan, and the US continue their downward spiral. From the article: "The United States (53rd) has fallen nine places since last year, after being in 17th position in the first year of the Index, in 2002. Relations between the media and the Bush administration sharply deteriorated after the president used the pretext of 'national security' to regard as suspicious any journalist who questioned his 'war on terrorism.' The zeal of federal courts which, unlike those in 33 US states, refuse to recognise the media's right not to reveal its sources, even threatens journalists whose investigations have no connection at all with terrorism."
#1 non-European country baby! ...er.. yeah :)
The fact that you can complain about it here like the above says we're not *that* bad yet. If you stop seeing anyone complaining at all, then you know things are REALLY bad... those people are being censored/arrested/etc.
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I wonder if they take into account such matters as government presence and control in media (since this is inversely proportional to how free the press and media are). It's kind of high in the UK (BBC) and kind of low in the US (as indicated by the low ratings of PBS and NPR, and how nobody really knows about VOA).
Finland, the #1 country, actually has strong government-controlled media (with government radio making up 61% of listening time).
Where were you when the voynix came?
The problem with RSF ranking of countries is that it does not make a difference between institutions (basically, the government) threatening journalists and individuals or groups not linked to the government. So if some islamist group threatens, say, danish journalists/cartoonists, the ranking of Danemark will go down. That does not mean Danish journalists are not free to report on whatever they want. So what you see in this country ranking is that countries that are not involved in "world affairs" have a high ranking, while countries that are rather large, with numerous minorities and a voice in world affairs are lower. I think RSF (which has an important role to play) should provide a more sophisticated ranking than this all-in-one rubbish.
I'll do it for cheesy poofs.
Huh? Theres millions of Americans with the viewpoint that we do TOO MUCH for other countries. It gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling to help others, sure. The rest of the world isn't our problem though.. IMO the problem is they need to focus more on American citizens and less on being big brother to the rest of the world.
FTFA:
``Denmark (19th) dropped from joint first place because of serious threats against the authors of the Mohammed cartoons published there in autumn 2005. For the first time in recent years in a country that is very observant of civil liberties, journalists had to have police protection due to threats against them because of their work.''
I don't see how this is supposed to work. These threats didn't come from the government (at least, it seems that way); in fact, the government _protected_ the journalists. And now, for thanks, they get a worse rating?
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
That's not a bit of yellow-yournalism is it? The examples they give are very different than what the above sentence says, in fact they don't give any examples of reporters being treated suspiciously for merely questioning his "war on terrorsim", they do give examples of other things that are bad.
By tring to throw in a completely un-needed "soundbite hook" like that they really do a disservice to their report, and it makes it look like they are doing a biased hatchet job than rather than a real report. That sentence does nothing for their report at all, other than give an opportunity for people to dicredit it.
Did anything in it advocate the common ownership of the means of production? Or a centrally planned economy? Or high taxation of the rich to fund a comprehensive welfare state and public services?
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
11. Americans abroad are patronising and arrogant in other countries, and look down on local customs and mores as being inferior, quaint, and/or silly - and make this opinion obvious and loudly
12. Americans are blind to many of their own people who live in poverty and without access to decent health care, and their gov't ignore their plight even when a disaster unfolds which attracts the attention of the world
13. American's espousal of greed and selfishness exudes from many TV programs whilst their gov't takes the moral high ground
14. The war in iraq, the prison camps, the secret flights carrying prisoners to countries where they can be tortured, the gov't ignoring the Geneva Convention and even making torture perfectly legal...
15. The trampling of their own citizens rights as corporations bribe their way into positions of influence
Reporters are able to tell a lot of the stories that they do because their sources can remain anonymous. For example, let's say that a person in a position of great power was doing something highly illegal. An inside source discovers this, and informs the press anonymously. There's a huge investigation where the officials try to discover the leak, as the source leaked confidential information. Here's where the story branches into three.
1) The reporter is imprisoned for not telling the authorities their source. Future whistleblowers fear being turned in by the reporters, and do nothing when things of this nature occur.
2) The reporter reveals all. Future whistleblowers are even more hesitant about revealing things of this nature.
3) The reporter is protected by the courts, and is not required to divulge the source.
Which of these do you think is optimal? The press is here to tell us stories of importance, nothing more. They are not policemen. They are supposed to operate independently of the government. They are supposed to tell us what they see. They are supposed to go to secret places and talk to secret people to bring us important information. If they are unable to tell us some of these secrets for whatever reason (wartime operations, anonymous sources, fugitives, etc), then they should under no circumstances be forced to reveal this information.
In my books, it's the most important freedom that the press has. Nixon might never have been impeached if reporters had functioned as you say they should.
I highly disagree with you. Sure, there are a lot of reporters who are bottom feeding fucktards, but saying that lessening their freedoms because of a lot of jackholes is a slippery slope. For example, we in most developed countries have freedom of speech. A lot of people use this freedom of speech to call eachother asshats, promote racism, speak lies, misinformation and nonsense... but I feel more comfortable tolerating all that stuff than having it banned.
Huh? Theres millions of Americans with the viewpoint that we do TOO MUCH for other countries. It gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling to help others, sure. The rest of the world isn't our problem though..
trouble is USA doesn't "help" anyone without huge caveats for themselves, want that food aid ? then you have to do [insert corp agenda here] first, like the bilateral warcrimes agreements (no aid if USA commit war crimes and you might prosecute us) or abstinence instead of condoms in Africa to stop AIDS, people see these all underhand dealings and see the "help" offered for what it really is
and the rest of the world is your problem, that is if you want to stop them wanting to fly airplanes into your assets
Since the report was recently released (yesterday), I wonder if the US' ranking includes the fact that habeas corpus has more or less been abolished for any US citizen that the president deems to be an "enemy combatant"?? I'm guessing that after the election, there are going to be journalists who will be shut down (read: vanish) on the grounds that they are undermining the War on Terror(tm) by vocalizing criticism of administration policy.
Then again, as a journalist, I'm a little bit biased in favor of the first amendment (for everyone, not just my viewpoint).
Transistors and Beer!!
Maybe because the Daily Show is a more reliable source of truthy news than Fox News.
Well different people have different ideas of what it means for the press to be free. For me, the right not to reveal sources is not fundamental to the freedom of press. On the other hand, many of these countries ranking high in "freedom of press" outlaw "hate speech". I consider the ability to speak one's opinion, no matter how nasty it is, as a necessary prerequisite for freedom of speech. So if you change those two aspects of the rankings, I imagine the ordering would change dramatically.
I'm not rah rah about the freedom of press as it currently stands in the US. The report points out some valid criticisms, and the Bush administration's tendency to be less and less transparent under the guise of national security worries me.
But the methodology of this report is a bit question-begging if we can't all agree on what it means for the press to be "free".
Funny how this argument comes from Europeans, Canadians, etc. that spend all their time telling Americans that their culture is crap, their entertainment is crap, they're fat, they're stupid, they're too religious, they have too many guns, they're too prudish when it comes to sex and too liberal when it comes to violence, we need to provide universal health care, etc. In other words, we need to be more like European countries, because they have everything figured out and do everything the right way.
But we're the ones who aren't accepting of other people's culture and way of life...
IMO the problem is they need to focus more on American citizens and less on being big brother to the rest of the world.
I agree. And I'm quite sure, a LOT of countries all over the world will agree, too.
Especially countries that have been "helped" recently.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
While the blurb headline may be construed as US-bashing, TFA does nothing of the sort, and shows that RSF has made a serious effort to measure freedom of the press. Also, the article merely confirms what everyone's been able to observe over the past few years. I see no FUD here, just a statement of fact.
I won't comment on being arrested for questioning the Holocaust, but in the other cases you pointed out (Denmark and Netherlands) the oppression is not caused by the government of those countries, but rather by people from a faith that doesn't believe in individual freedom.
Stupidity is an equal opportunity striker.
Fellow slashdotter Bill Dog
It may be that in the case of well established democracies, like the UK and Finland, there is never the need to criticize to the point where a journalist could get in trouble. Sure the press can ridicule and criticize the ruling party, but what happens when they start ridiculing and criticizing the system itself? Doing things like calling for a theocracy, or for the queen to be arrested? I think you'd quickly see the government asserting their control over the press with a heavy hand.
Of course, calling for a theocracy or arrest of royalty would be a crazy thing to do and will probably never happen in countries like modern Britain and Finland, since everything is going fairly well. Some of those countries who rank low on this freedom-of-press scale may not be so bad when it comes to press freedom, it's just that the country itself is so messed up that the solutions border on treason, so when the journalists call for the proper solution, they get in trouble.
There are several countries I can think of that, since the end of the cold war, have been able to get a fledgling democracy going. But at the same time there are factions still trying to instigate war, or otherwise topple the government. The press in places like that may be allowed to criticize the current president or prime minister and the way they do things, but as soon as they criticize the system itself as a whole, they are considered to be siding with insurgents/revolutionaries. Which may actually be the right thing to do if the government is turning totalitarian.
So, it may be fine to have state sponsored media when things are all well and good, but when things go sour it might be better to have some media that is completely, politically and economically, independent of any part of the government.
i agree generally with your statements about democracy and diversity in India, but i do think you're painting a somewhat overly-rosy picture. there is the occasional spat of violence (as in bombs going off, not just some street brawl); last time i was there, a bomb went off the day i left the country. and while the "holy men" certainly above scrutiny, equating the outlook on Hindus in India to the outlook on Christians in the USA isn't really fair: certainly the civil calendar is much more based on Hindu festivals and they're much more ingrained in the secular culture of the country (it'd be something like if all half the country didn't show up for work on Ash Wednesday and all 12 days of Christmas were de facto holidays).
still, the fact that it works as well as it does is pretty impressive, really. there's certainly no lack of bad blood, between the human tragedy that was Partition and the on-off war with Pakistan (among other things). yet it mostly just works. again, i agree in general, i just think you're overstating it.
i speak for myself and those who like what i say.
That's what they do. They are called suicide bombers for that reason.
Earnestly: There are still more U.S. citizens dying because they choke on a fishbone (about 2500 each year) than because of terrorism. Puts things to perspective, doesn't it?
I suppose we're up for another healthy round of "bash Americ(kkk)a"? Please folks let's just give it all a rest.
Let's see what we've got - the most egregious case of a reporter being prosecuted for refusing to reveal a source was the now infamous Plame "outing". Do I need to bother pointing out that it was the media's incessant demands for an investigation that led to this in the first place?
Maybe we should instead look at the NYT's public editor's recent mea culpa where he admitted that the NYT shouldn't have broken the story about the SWIFT monitoring? Turns out that the program was secret, effective, and *gasp* legal. Oh well, NYT and the LAT got their scoop, secrets be damned.
If we want to talk about press freedom how about we get worked up about the cartoon drawers who have had to go into hiding? How about the newspaper editors who have been killed? How about the riots that emerge anytime anyone even breaths something that could be misconstrued as insulting to Islam.
Here's your press freedom quiz:
1) You're reporting on riots caused by the release of some political cartoons. Do you show the cartoons?
2) You're reporting on Iraq and you receive an obvious propoganda video of sniper shooting, do you show the video?
CNN's answer was No and Yes, you can guess which order those were in.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
Problem is, it's most likely shares your biases so you'll allow yourself to be convinced it isn't biased.
Sadly, this country has been hijacked by those that use knee-jerk reactions and fear as their tools to stay in power, and those of us who can think logically about the rather small threat that terrorism presents are seen as "pro terrorist" since we don't want to give up the ideas this country was founded on, in order to have the illusion of safety.
I don't like either party all that much, but since I know they're not going to go away, can we at least go back to the system where repubs had the house and dems had the senate (or vice versa) so they'll simply spend all their time arguing and none of their time doing things that take away my rights or otherwise hurt me?
Now what happens if those classified documents reveal the fact that the government has been conducting illegal activities, say something like wiretaps with no court orders? How is that not just another form of whistleblowing?
Personally, I'm not willing to give the government carte blanche to do whatever they want by just making it classified.
Freedom of the press exists as a quasi-check on the government and I believe the current administration is trying to supress the presses ability to gain access to documents to avoid public scrutiny.
When was the last time the press published something classified that actually harmed this country as opposed to bringing to light some kind of power grab by the administration?
People around the world need to realize that US Citizens and the US Government are two different things. Ideally the US Citizens should control the US Government, but realistically we don't. If you think it is so easy, then become a US Citizen or better yet a US Politician and help change it. By the way millions of US Citizens help people in other countries all the time, but without the help of our government it makes the process take longer.
Can I bum a sig?
Well different people have different ideas of what it means for the press to be free. For me, the right not to reveal sources is not fundamental to the freedom of press. On the other hand, many of these countries ranking high in "freedom of press" outlaw "hate speech". I consider the ability to speak one's opinion, no matter how nasty it is, as a necessary prerequisite for freedom of speech. So if you change those two aspects of the rankings, I imagine the ordering would change dramatically.
Free press is about reporting facts ; if a journalist can't assure his sources anonymity, some won't talk, and the press is matter of fatly gaged. On the other hand, hate speech is *not* free press. It is unfounded opinions, based on biaised facts - or no fact at all, and while I agree it should not be prosecuted, it's absolutely not in the same league.
I watch the Daily Show, I enjoy it for the most part. But it is not less biased. More factually correct? Quite possibly. But it is extremely biased. It can be used to define what bias is.
It's bias is to get a laugh at the expense of the people in power.
Which makes it is one of the few major information outlets that has any kind of adversarial relationship to government.
Modern politics is diabolically media savvy. It can assert the most outrageous lies, and even when the media rises to the occasion and challenges the lies, that still plays into the hands of the politicians. The secret of the "Big Lie" is repetition. It doesn't matter what the reporter says as long as they show the message. Propaganda techniques are meant to engage the emotions and dull the critical faculties. The more outrageous the lie, the more repetitive the objections of the press become, subsiding into a kind of incomprehensible background hum.
It's all about nudging people into habitual tracks of thought.
I think it was Wittgenstein who said that the ideal philosophical text would be written entirely in jokes. If you didn't laugh, you didn't understand what was being said. While there is an element of simple Schadenfreude in all political humor, the key element of TDS is that it is ironical. Irony makes you laugh because it takes you out of one frame of mind and forces you to look at it in another. This is the typical Daily Show joke setup: they give you the political message, then they ruthlessly force you to look at that message in context of the actual news.
A few years ago somebody figured out that habitual Daily Show viewers were better informed than habitual network news show watchers. In part this may be selection bias; but I'm not sure that's the complete story. It may be that at its best, political humor makes you think critically in a way that regular news does not.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
At least one difference between Fox News and The Daily Show (putting factual accuracy aside for the moment) is that the Daily Show makes no bones about being biased - it makes no attempt to hide behind objectivity. Fox News, on the other hand, actually takes itself seriously.
Bias in itself isn't necessarily a bad thing; attempting to claim objectivity when clearly you're not objective is far worse. Owning up to your own bias is in my estimation, a very mature thing to do.
We are the fire that lights our world.. and we are the fire that consumes it.
I'd mod you up except I'd like to make the point that, instead of getting modded up as "insightful", they were modded up as "funny". And no matter what stance you have on this issue, in context of the article, the above posts are rather amusing.
Tluin natha Linux xxizzuss uriu olt bwael mon'tun.
Yes, everyone in the US is absolutely rich, and we have streets of gold and pay people to wipe our arses for us. Would that were true - the reality is, the US is not the cheapest place in the world to live. However, the per-capita card never seems to take that into account.
According to many, cost of living in the USA is cheaper then say most of north-west Europe. This is also my experience from having lived in both the USA and the EU. Despite that, per-capita spending on support for developing nations in the EU is higher then in the USA. Conclusion can only be that while your argument makes sense at first glance, reality shows it wrong.
it's that you refuse to see anything good about the US. No-one is perfect.
I think that that is a response to how many an American deals with any form of critisism whatsoever. If you are not perfect, thats fine, thats just human, and no different from the rest of us. The issue is that the first thing you should do when you realize that you are not perfect is to start listening to others who do see the imperfactions.
As it is however, pointing out any imperfections of the USA gets you a combination of the following:
- being dismissed as anti-american.
This is really stupid, your enemies won't point out your mistakes, they will abuse them.
- screaming and raving about the imperfection not existing.
No chance on fixing anything when you refuse to see it
- pointing at others who make similar or at times even unrelated mistakes.
A strawman argument, someone elses mistakes don't justify your own mistakes.
The problem is you feeling attacked instead of taking note and trying to improve.
Sometimes laughter lets the truth slip in when the cold hard facts would just make someone so defensive they couldn't even consider it.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
My point is the US gets blamed for doing nothing and for doing anything. No one is stopping any of the European nations from stopping the genocide in darfur. No one was stopping anyone from stopping it in Rwanda or intervening in Somalia. I'm saying that more often than not the US is the only nation that does anything to help while other nations do nothing except for sit back on the sideline and criticize.
"In the game of life, someone always has to lose. To me, if life were fair, that someone would always be Oklahoma." -DKR
I don't mind striking back, but it has to stay somewhat in proportion. Assuming Bush was right about Osama being supported by the Taliban, what is the appropriate response for 3000 dead in the WTC? Invading the country and toppling their government?
Yes I think so, but that should be enough. If you turn it into a worldwide "War On Terror", you will step on a lot of people's toes who really had nothing to do with September 11th, and create a lot of new terrorists in the process.
Thus I was (despite some doubts) in favor of taking out the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. But the invasion of Iraq is an unmitigated disaster.
C - the footgun of programming languages
People around the world need to realize that US Citizens and the US Government are two different things.
That's as maybe, but the same applies to a lot of US citizens who railed against the French for their criticisms of Gulf War 2 ("freedom fries", anyone?), etc. Speaking of a country (or indeed any group of people) as though everyone in it holds identical viewpoints is hardly a solely non-American trait.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
only once I said I was English not American did the non-Americans even acknowledge my existence
This is becasue of the stereotype associated with a typical American. Basically it is as follows:
"Americans are the best hosts in the world, however they make the lousiest guests"
And it's a stereotype that persists because it is largely true. I have travelled the US extensively and can say first hand that American people treat visitors like their own families (perhaps even better). Hospitality and service is second-to-none. The food is delicious (and big....y'all have REALLY BIG FOOD in most of the US...and not very heart-healthy....but it's very tasty). People are very knowledgable about their locality and will not hesitate to offer you their assistance in making your stay an enjoyable one. Contrast this level of hospitality and service to what is offered in "friendly Canada". Service and hospitality in Canada is utter crap in comparison...service is polite and friendly but not considerate---tourists have to ask for help even if it is obvious by their appearance. People do not know their own back yards, there is no attention to detail and not the level of pride in their homeland as compared with the US. It is quite a noticeable difference in culture given that these two countries share the same language and land mass and have so much culteral cross-pollination.
The case of a US tourist in another country is the exact opposite situation. The US Tourist sees himself as an HONOURED GUEST. They expect (some would say demand) the same kind of treatment that they would give to an honoured guest back home. "Heck, we liberated your continent you should at least show your respect" some might be thinking as they travel Europe (never mind that the British Commmonwealth just kinda-sorta helped out with that liberation-of-Europe thing too). When in Canada the American Tourist gets annoyed at the lack of consideration, attention-to-detail and so on. In some parts of Europe, where offering a modicum of hospitality is seem as some great favour, it gets even worse--the American Tourist gets angry. Not only are the locals offended by the thought of having to bow down and treat the American Tourist as royalty, they are also afraid of the consequences--they don't want confrontation. Thus, the poor American Tourist is simply avoided entirely by the locals whenever possible.
Canadians aren't THAT much different culturally from the Americans, but as is the case with how each country treats its tourists, Canadians behave much differently as tourists. This is where the "quiet, polite, friendly-but-boring Canadian" stereotype comes from. As a guest, the Canadian feels grateful for being accomodated and doesn't want to put the host out. The Canadian Tourist says "sorry" for the slightest inconvenience put upon the host, and "thank you" for the slightest little favour. And to one degree or another many other cultures are the same. This is why a tourist with a Canadian flag is catered to much more warmly overseas...they are simply great guests. That above all (including current and past foreign policy) has to do with how tourists are treated.
I do agree with the parent poster here...to the American Tourists out there, remember that not everyone shares your way of live, nor wants to...and when you are a guest in another nation do try to be a GOOD guest and leave a good impression. I'd like to add to that however--TO EVERYONE ELSE IN THE WORLD: Americans may have a brash way of living but they have a level of civic pride that is sorely lacking in the rest of the world. Take your own advice, live and let live. Furthermore, visit the USA and learn what it is to have real pride in your homeland and HOW TO BE GOOD HOSTS.
If we simply learned more from one another then the world would be a much better place. After that things like foreign policy in the middle east and institutional reform in government would work themselves out much more smoothly as well.
Why not believe both sets of numbers? The first was about economic aid to poor countries, and the second counted all volunteering and giving. Donating money to the ACLU, or to Pat Robertson, is not likely to help poorer countries, so would be counted in the second set of statistics, but not the first. Right?
> Thus I was (despite some doubts) in favor of taking out the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. But the invasion of Iraq is an unmitigated disaster.
Sorry to disillusion you, but things are not going well in Afghanistan. Very good, the govt. was toppled and a new one put in. Unfortunately, that doesn't by default leave things in a stable condition; in fact things could be worse than they were before in the future.
Sure staying the course might help - but it is untenable to do so, the more soldiers die. It is unlikely to be so very long now before the British are forced to withdraw; and this is partly *because* they have put more troops in and made a huge effort. There have been a lot (as far as the UK are concerned) of British soldiers dying in Afghanistan in the last while. And other countries are having a tough time and didn't even want to put more troops in.
Pakistan is right to be worried about the Taleban just coming back in again, stronger than ever.
You can't just go around the world willy-nilly toppling governments by force just because they are awful govts, or allow a base of operations for terrorists (poor/unsupported govt. or lack of govt. allows this too). And it for sure is not Christian (look up Christian teachings on govt. and authority - or just look at Jesus' take on the Roman occupation of Israel) - which is ironic considering Bush and a particular segment of his support.
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