US Plunges To 46th In World Press Freedom Index

schwit1 writes "Reporters Without Borders puts out their Press Freedom Index every year, and the 2014 ranking came out today. It was not a good showing for the U.S. Specifically, the U.S. registered one of the steepest falls of all nations, down 13 slots to the #46 position, just above Haiti and just below Romania."

Comments

We're the best country in the world!!! Woo!!

[erroneus]

Free nation! Under God! Best thing since apple pie.

The US has really fallen from its optimistic condition so many decades ago. And that failure is not the worst thing about it. It's the fact that no one in the US seems to care.

Re:We're the best country in the world!!! Woo!!

[interkin3tic]

A good number of Americans think we need to give up rights to fight cultists with box-cutters and pipe bombs, rights we didn't need to give up in the face of real national security threats. But I don't think that's the whole story here. The cold war was going on, our enemies ACTUALLY had real weapons worth considering, Nixon resigned.

I suspect one issue is the economy, and the other is a changing media. Democracies can't really function when too many people are too financially stressed, it fits that people wouldn't take threats to the freedom of the press as seriously if they're worried about losing the house. Most of the people with brains or who care have stopped watching cable news and newspapers are dying, so the audiences for the media are dumber and more easily controlled.

I'm not as convinced as many people are that the sky is falling, so I suspect the economy will eventually improve. I also suspect that when the change in media matures, perhaps when kids who now get their news online start being less apathetic, and when the fox news crowd dies, that we -might- demand better.

TLDR: I think it's more complicated than everyone collectively saying "Fuck it, I don't care about democracy, I'm going to go tweet something."

Re:No... their stats suck

[Overzeetop]

Go look at the actual 3D data map on the site, you'll find that the US is nearly indistinguishable from basically every other 1st world Western Eurpoean-Centric nation. When you see the difference between the "top plateau" and "everyone else" it becomes pretty clear that there really is nothing to see here.