Do you have much confidence in their methodology? It seems very subjective to me, and includes lots of factors which are basically “is it nice to be a journalist” rather than “are journalists unfree”. When I look at what they marked the US down for my overall takeaway is that some of the things are bad but irrelevant—unprofitable newspapers closing down or journalists not being trusted are just totally different issues—and good things like the US’s very robust first amendment protections are simply not mentioned at all. If this is enough to give the US a middling score then they must be grading very harshly. In contrast the existence of statutory censorship seems to go unmentioned for some other countries, even though this is surely a much more significant restriction on press freedom.
Do you have much confidence in their methodology? It seems very subjective to me, and includes lots of factors which are basically “is it nice to be a journalist” rather than “are journalists unfree”. When I look at what they marked the US down for my overall takeaway is that some of the things are bad but irrelevant—unprofitable newspapers closing down or journalists not being trusted are just totally different issues—and good things like the US’s very robust first amendment protections are simply not mentioned at all. If this is enough to give the US a middling score then they must be grading very harshly. In contrast the existence of statutory censorship seems to go unmentioned for some other countries, even though this is surely a much more significant restriction on press freedom.