Press Freedom Index
Reporters Sans Frontières (Reporters Without Borders) has released its 2006 Worldwide Press Freedom Index.
New Zealand has been ranked a creditable 19th behind a number of Scandinavian and Central European countries and ahead of the likes of the UK, the USA, and Australia. (The previously mentioned Turkmenistan came second-to-last with only North Korea worse.)
New Zealand’s ranking has dropped this year and, more importantly, our absolute score has got worse. My guess is that this is due to the handling of the Mohammed cartoons brouhaha and I have written to RSF to ask for the details.
October 27th, 2006 at 1:46 am
Yes this appears to be as much about press harassment from private citizens and groups than from the state - otherwise it would be fair to say most western countries would be ranked almost equally.