last week there was a small flurry of interest in the release of reporters without borders (RSF) annual press freedom ranking. the flurry, at least in this country, was centered on the u.s.'s drop to 53rd place this year. we're tied with tonga, croatia, and botswana (take that uruguay!) the u.s. dropped 9 places this year. it's been in continuous free fall since the survey began in 2002 (when the u.s. was in 17th place)
anyway, this stuff has already been covered elsewhere. that's not why i'm writing this post.
i'm writing because i finally got around to looking at the rankings themselves. this year iraq was in 154th place. (last place was north korea at 168th). iraq was one place behind syria. yes, that's right, three years after its liberation "free iraq" has a lower press freedom score than a baathist police state.
iraq's dismal press freedom score is mostly due to the number of journalists attacked and killed in iraq rather than intentional acts by the iraqi government. then again, the iraqi government issued a warrant to arrest the editor of a newspaper and has shut down satellite news channels because of their coverage it has also "resurrected verbatim from Saddam Hussein's penal code" laws that criminalize criticism of the government. the net result is that iraq's gross score on press freedom has improved a little bit since saddam was in power (this year's score of 66.83 vs. iraq's 2002 score of 79.00. a lower score means fewer restrictions on press freedom), but it still in comparable with places where no meaningful freedom of the press exist.
