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US Plummets On World Press Freedom Ranking
Jeremiah Cornelius writes "Reporters Without Borders released its 2011-2012 global Press Freedom Index. The indicators for press freedom in the U.S. are dramatic, with a downward movement from 27th to 47th in the global ranking, from the previous year. Much of this is correlated directly to the arrest and incarceration of American journalists covering the 'Occupy' protest movements in New York and across the country. 'This is especially troubling as we head into an election year which is sure to spark new conflicts between police and press covering rallies, protests and political events.' Only Chile, who dropped from 33 to 80, joined the U.S. in falling over 100% of their previous ranking. Similarly, Chile was downgraded for 'freedom of information violations committed by the security forces during student protests.'"
I'm surprised the US isn't lower.
I don't think they'd rate a Brave New World-esque media as "free".
http://www.recombinantrecords.net/docs/2009-05-Amusing-Ourselves-to-Death.html
Memorable quotes for
Looker (1981)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082677/quotes
"John Reston: Television can control public opinion more effectively than armies of secret police, because television is entirely voluntary. The American government forces our children to attend school, but nobody forces them to watch T.V. Americans of all ages *submit* to television. Television is the American ideal. Persuasion without coercion. Nobody makes us watch. Who could have predicted that a *free* people would voluntarily spend one fifth of their lives sitting in front of a *box* with pictures? Fifteen years sitting in prison is punishment. But 15 years sitting in front of a television set is entertainment. And the average American now spends more than one and a half years of his life just watching television commercials. Fifty minutes, every day of his life, watching commercials. Now, that's power. "
"The United States has it's own propaganda, but it's very effective because people don't realize that it's propaganda. And it's subtle, but it's actually a much stronger propaganda machine than the Nazis had but it's funded in a different way. With the Nazis it was funded by the government, but in the United States, it's funded by corporations and corporations they only want things to happen that will make people want to buy stuff. So whatever that is, then that is considered okay and good, but that doesn't necessarily mean it really serves people's thinking - it can stupify and make not very good things happen."
-- Crispin Glover: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000417/bio
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, CIA Director
...that the US would plummet on World Press Freedom rankings given that Fox News literally won the right in court to lie to its viewers.
So if journalists are not allowed to be at events to cover them, but can then write all they want (about what they missed?), then that is full freedom? It seems like that is what you're saying
. Not only are you wrong, but I have to wonder what kind of personal bias you have to even go down that line of logic.
You never specified "what happened to the journalists trying to cover OWS", purposely leaving your own argument vague. Probably because if you look at the details, you'll find they were in public space covering the public doing public things.
And yes, being prevented from doing that IS freedom of press, despite your Orwellianesque attempt to redefine the word.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
Meaningless metric
...and incorrectly applied in any case; 47 is less than twice 27.
What matters is how many places up or down you move.
...of how many total places there are - it's not the same to move down 20 positions out of 200 than 20 out of 21. Or equivalently, what % of the table you move (provided the table has not changed size due to countries being added/removed).
But this is a very subjective topic and even these more appropriate metrics conform a rather incomplete picture of the situation.
The state you are in while your HEAD is detached... - wait, what?
Private Manning comes to mind...
No sig today...
Freedom of the press is about publishing without interference, not about being able to go anywhere one wants.
It was my understanding that the "occupy" protests, in general, have been occurring in public spaces (this is certainly the case in my city). I don't understand why it would be illegal to go to a public space in order to report on a protest happening there.
If you're talking about cases where journalists have committed illegal trespass, then perhaps I could see your point. But I assume that the press freedom rankings are based on arrests of journalists not committing trespass. I'm thinking about people such as Kristyna Wentz-Graff; since she was released without charge, it would appear that she was not committing a crime when she was arrested.
So what you are saying is that arresting the press at a gathering on public land is not a freedom of the press issue? What you mean is that we can say what we want, but are not permitted to observe what is happening on our land?
Not really irony. They simply know where the slippery slope leads. Americans have forgotten why tyranny is bad.
Great Intellect...
I don't see how you could call him a tool. But he did violate his oath, but I don't see how it should be considered treason unless treason is considered a very broad term in the military. Additionally, I cannot agree that anyone, no matter what they are guilty of, deserve a death sentence if their crime had no provable real negative effects. Also, there are many whistle-blower laws that are supposed to protect people like Manning (because not only do employers unilaterally dislike whistle-blowers, often it would be illegal to disclose information, except when you are a whistle-blower).
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
More to the point, why would anyone care what % they drop in a ranking? A ranking is just an ordered list. It says nothing about the criteria used to put the elements in that order.
It's like finishing times for a marathon. If the leading pack crosses together, there could be only a 30 second difference between 1st place and 25th place. Meanwhile there could be a 5 minute difference between 25th place and 26st place. But if you look at just the ranking, you'd think that the 25th place finisher was nearly as bad as the 26th place finisher, when in reality he was actually very close to finishing 1st.
If you want to make relative comparisons like %, you have to look at the finishing times. In particular, the rank order is meaningless for gauging year-to-year changes. What if everyone improved? Then you could drop in rank despite doing better than the previous year.
You mean the oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic? Seems he's one of the few who took it seriously.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
I'm not going to claim that the US is perfect with regards to the press, but most of RSF's complaints seem questionable to me -- in particular, those regarding covering the Occupy movement. If you put yourself in the middle of a crowd control situation, you risk being lumped in with the crowd, even if you're just covering it, especially since there were a fair number of people who were part of the protest movement while operating in a quasi-journalist mode as well (taking pics/vids to post, etc). Whether you agree with (say) the police clearing out a park where the protestors are camped, someone who is ordered to get out and doesn't, is going to get arrested, whether they're a report or not. I'm not condoning police getting out of control, but it's not a press freedom issue just because some journalists get swept up in it.
There are a few more things like that, regarding countries other than the United States, in the full report. For example, India gets dinged because "journalists were exposed to violence stemming from the persistent conflicts in the states of Chhattisgarh and Jammu and Kashmir." Umm, if you go into a war zone, you run the risk of being "exposed to violence." It's as if RSF expects journalists to be surrounded by some sort of holy aura whenever they go into chaotic or even deadly situations. Don't get me wrong, I have great admiration for the reporters brave enough to cover a war, but it's only a violation of press freedom if they get targeted because they're journalists.
"The Greens lynched a hacker in Chicago. Last month, but I think the body's still hanging from the old Water Tower."
...of how many total places there are
Still wrong. What matters is how much you change in the objective measure that is then sorted into a ranking. Someone else used a marathon as an example, go find and read it.
But Manning didn't use any of the legitimate avenues available to him. The US armed services have a variety of way to go around your command structure to report a problem with your command structure (their not idiots!). It's usually a career-ending choice, but it's completely legal. There are ways to be a whistle-blower built into the army.
But that's not what happened - he didn't make any such attempt, he just revealed secrets in violaiton of his oath at the first opportunity. If the military let anyone get away with that sort of BS, we couldn't win a war. The simple fact is - Manning simply had no way of knowing what was really going on with the stuff he leaked, and it's just part of being in any army that you're not going to be told everything that's happening, so you can't really reach conclusions about whether someone distant from you is crossing the line. All you can legitimately do is say "hey this looks bad, that guy's chain of command needs to look at this", or in an extreme case "hey, that guy's entire chain of comman must be corrupt, so the JAG needs to get involved", but you'll never have any of the result of that explained to you.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Totally agree, man. As long as the rape of the Constitution isn't too widespread, it's ok. It's just a little rape.
Once again, Manning was NOT a whistle blower. A whistle blower understands the information he has and why it's wrong. There is no physically possible way that Manning could have known the contents of over a quarter of a million documents that were just dumped on the net. He has no idea what information got out or what kind of damage he could have done.
Every nation has secrets. Some need to be revealed. America is no exception. But Manning was a reckless prick.
Considering I live in the US, I think claiming i have "an axe to grind" is a little disingenuous. If I do, it is for good reason.
The freedom of the press in the US primarily applies to mass media. Over the last decade, free speech has been cut away for everyone else. Try video taping a public official or locating something embarrassing to the government/big business. At best you will have your camera/computer stolen, at worst you will end up in jail. Of course, the fact mass media still has freedom is meaningless, since they are owned by the same people who own the government. If you believe the US is freer than Europe, it is probably because you have listened to the official line, and not actually gone and figured out why the US might actually be ranked lower.
Great Intellect...
...and incorrectly applied in any case; 47 is less than twice 27.
Actually, the incorrect part is the summary.. the US fell 27 places... from #20 to #47.
And while I will admit there is still a long way we can still fall, perhaps some of us should reflect for a moment about the countries ranked higher than we are, and how they got there, considering where they were (in general, not absolutely speaking in terms of this particular metric) not too long ago... Some of these places were the places I I heard about in school when they talked about repression and how "those commies" were trying to take over the world... Phrases like "Papers, please.... Your papers..." were practically ingrained into our social consciousness, asked of poor innocents in every movie with a scene set in one of these places... I'm extremely glad to hear they are doing so well (and that the stereotypes "may" have been exaggerated ;-) ) But I still have to ask; What the hell is happening to us? Aren't we supposed to be the shining light? Aren't we supposed to be the beacon of hope, the pinnacle of freedom? More importantly, why do so few people seem to care?
This thing reminds me of the doomsday clock.
It's just the opinion of a group of people... the validity of the claim is entirely dependent on their judgment.
Here's a question... what is their judgement rating? Anyone bother to rank them? Is there ever an audit of their reliability?
If not... then how do we know that the broken thermometer isn't telling us it's getting colder or warmer? Have to test the instruments.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Godwin's law does not apply to discussions of fascist or otherwise totalitarian regimes. Absolute statists hide behind that dodge all too often.
You know, this is like the fifth time that I've seen this on Slashdot in the last week. Even so, this is copypasta I can get behind.
At least it doesn't start "Fear, control, etc." and then start ranting about the Zionist conspiracy towards a one world government or something like that...
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
The arrest of journalist Kristyna Wentz-Graff was not part of some systematic crack down on reporters/journalists. At best it was a swamped cop dealing with a large group and not noticing her credentials, at worst it was an idiot cop, maybe both. To infer, as I think the FA does, that the US is arresting journalists as part of some nation wide crackdown is completely false, or at least very misleading.
... and calling for the murder of Julian Assange was just a misunderstanding. Seriously, what facts or reasoning do you have to offer? You attribute the arrests to idiocy, but who knows for sure. If you're thinking that not enough journalists were arrested, maybe it's about quality and not quantity. How may other journalists learned of her arrest, and decided they'd better follow the rules? Also, do you know how many journalists were arrested? I don't.
The Occupy protests were not covered fairly by the corporate media. If Reporters Without Borders got the reasons wrong, thinking it was arrests instead of journalists being house-trained and leashed minions of multinationals, they still got to the right conclusion.
tomorrow who's gonna fuss
Things don't rise, they skyrocket, they don't drop, they plummet. Cuts are always draconian, oil spews, smoke belches. Now, make sure you keep your notes for the next semester Political Science 101. Class dismissed
"...and yet, I blame society" Duke - Repo Man
>What the hell is happening to us? Aren't we supposed to be the shining light? Aren't we supposed to be the beacon of hope, the pinnacle of freedom? More importantly, why do so few people seem to care?
Only two people types of people have ever said that: American politicians and American schoolteachers. Nobody else in the world has EVER thought of you that way, and frankly when us people in the rest of the world think of nations that are the epitomy of civil liberty and freedom - America hasn't even been in the top 10 in decades. The most liberal constitution in the world belongs to an African country for crying out loud.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Who promise wam fuzzies of one type or another.
It isn't left vs right. It's authoritarian vs autarchic.
There are a couple of ironies which are missed in American politics. It's rather bewildering to watch from the outside.
1. On the liberal side: How can liberal ideals, which are literally those which pertain to being free, possibly be accomplished by handing more authority to a centralised bureaucracy?
2. On the conservative side: How can conservative ideals, such as lower taxation possibly be accomplished by increasing legislation, rules, regulations on social issues like abortion, drugs or increasing spending on military or law enforcement?
Both points of view, liberal and conservative are logically inconsistent with the methods being used to achieve them.
It seems to me that you are voting along the wrong axes. The true axis is authoritarian vs autarchic (I won't use the word "liberal" because the meaning has been perverted) and both sides; republican and democrat are authoritarian.
Deleted