Reporters Without Borders publishes 2003 press freedom rankings . . .

[OneBlueSky]

Cuba second from last, just ahead of North Korea

United States and Israel singled out for actions beyond their borders

http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=8247

"Reporters Without Borders today publishes its second world press freedom ranking. Like last year, the most catastrophic situation is to found in Asia, with eight countries in the bottom ten : North Korea, Burma, Laos, China, Iran, Vietnam, Turkmenistan and Bhutan. Independent news media are either non-existent in these countries, or are constantly repressed by the authorities. Journalists there work in extremely difficult conditions, with no freedom and no security. A number of them are imprisoned in Burma, China and Iran."

(snip)

"Special situation of the United States and Israel The ranking distinguishes behaviour at home and abroad in the cases of the United States and Israel. They are ranked in 31st and 44th positions respectively as regards respect for freedom of expression on their own territory, but they fall to the 135th and 146th positions as regards behaviour beyond their borders.

"The Israeli army's repeated abuses against journalists in the occupied territories and the US army's responsibility in the death of several reporters during the war in Iraq constitute unacceptable behaviour by two nations that never stop stressing their commitment to freedom of expression."

- much more . . .

http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=8247

pretty poor showing for a country that touts its first amendment as a model for others to follow . . .

[rucky]

1. Maybe * was making his Asia Tour

for new and exciting ways to stifle our press

[E_Zapata]

2. This is really GOOD NEWS:

maybe the terra-ists will stop hating us for our freedoms! And the War on Terra can be done with! Hip hip hooray!

[RandomUser]

3. Not an apples to apples comparison

The reason given for the low U.S. ranking in foreign coverage was the deaths of reporters during the Iraq war. By that logic, a small island nation without an army would have a much higher ranking on foreign news coverage. This renders the rankings suspect, because they are artificially lowered by the Iraqi deaths. I seriously doubt the U.S. government had a concerted program to kill foreign journalists to stifle foreign news coverage.

[NJCher]

4. guess you didn't read the threads very carefully during that time

There were at least two incidents that I recall that were quite clear.


Cher

[RandomUser]

5. You might be right

I wasn't on DU during the war, so most likely don't know what threads you speak of. But regardless, the comparison rankings are for "freedom of the press" if I'm not mistaken. But when you have one country in a combat sitiuation and one country not, obviously the one in the combat situation will have a greater chance of journalist casualities. This difference does not represent a difference in "freedom of the press" as allowed by the government -- which is what the report purports to rank.

This is in direct contrast to the the "freedom of the press" rankings on domestic coverage, where it is indeed apples to apples. I would consider those rankings valid. But it would be hard to consider the foreign coverage rankings to be valid when you can't have an apples to apples comparison -- because the combat situations of the various countries are manifestly different.