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USA and UK slip down global press freedom index, thanks to their reaction to Snowden
and Russia is as shitty as ever:
Global press freedom fell to its lowest level in over a decade in 2013, as hopes raised by the Arab Spring were further dashed by major regression in Egypt, Libya, and Jordan, and marked setbacks also occurred in Turkey, Ukraine, and a number of countries in East Africa. In another key development, media freedom in the United States deteriorated due primarily to attempts by the government to inhibit reporting on national security issues.
...
The United States remains one of the stronger performers in the index, but it suffered a significant negative shift for 2013, from 18 to 21 points, due to several factors. The limited willingness of high-level government officials to provide access and information to members of the press, already noted in 2012, remained a concern, and additional methods of restricting the flow of information became apparent during the year. For example, there was an increase in the number of Freedom of Information Act requests that were either denied or censored on national security grounds. Journalists who endeavored to cover national security issues faced continued efforts by the federal judiciary to compel them to testify or to hand over materials that would reveal their sources in a number of cases—the James Risen case being the most prominent ongoing dispute. Finally, the practices disclosed by Edward Snowden, a former NSA contractor, regarding mass surveillance and the storage of metadata and digital content by the NSA, coupled with the targeted surveillance of the phones of dozens of Associated Press journalists, raised questions regarding the ability of journalists to protect their sources and cast a pall over free speech protections in the United States. Ongoing challenges include the threat to media diversity stemming from poor economic conditions for the news industry, as well as the lack of protection-of-sources legislation at the federal level.
...
It is notable that three of the eight worst press freedom abusers in the world—Belarus, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan—are found in Eurasia. Other countries of special concern in the region include Russia and Azerbaijan. The media environment in Russia, whose score remained at 81, is characterized by the use of a pliant judiciary to prosecute independent journalists, impunity for the physical harassment and murder of journalists, and continued state control or influence over almost all traditional media outlets. In 2013, the Russian government enacted additional legal restrictions on freedom of speech. Among the year’s most prominent developments was the December decision by President Vladimir Putin to abolish one of Russia’s oldest state-owned news agencies, RIA Novosti, and fold it into a new entity called Rossiya Segodnya (Russia Today), which would be run by pro-Kremlin television commentator Dmitriy Kiselyov. While bloggers and journalists, as well as radio and television broadcasters, are successfully utilizing the internet to reach audiences interested in alternative and more balanced sources of information, the government has begun to use a combination of the law, the courts, and regulatory pressure to extend its crackdown to online media.
...
The United Kingdom registered both positive and negative trends in 2013, leading to a net decline from 21 to 23 points. A long-awaited reform of the libel laws raised the threshold for initiating cases and has the potential to curb “libel tourism.” However, a number of negative developments stemmed from the government’s response to the revelations of surveillance by the NSA and its British counterpart, Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). Authorities used the Terrorism Act to detain the partner of investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald, who broke the story; raided the offices of the Guardian newspaper and destroyed hard drives containing potentially sensitive source materials; and subsequently threatened the Guardian with further action. In the wake of the 2011 News of the World phone-hacking scandal and the Leveson inquiry that followed, the establishment of a new regulatory body to oversee print media also raised concerns among some observers.
http://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-press-2014/overview-essay#.U1UqwvldW_E
...
The United States remains one of the stronger performers in the index, but it suffered a significant negative shift for 2013, from 18 to 21 points, due to several factors. The limited willingness of high-level government officials to provide access and information to members of the press, already noted in 2012, remained a concern, and additional methods of restricting the flow of information became apparent during the year. For example, there was an increase in the number of Freedom of Information Act requests that were either denied or censored on national security grounds. Journalists who endeavored to cover national security issues faced continued efforts by the federal judiciary to compel them to testify or to hand over materials that would reveal their sources in a number of cases—the James Risen case being the most prominent ongoing dispute. Finally, the practices disclosed by Edward Snowden, a former NSA contractor, regarding mass surveillance and the storage of metadata and digital content by the NSA, coupled with the targeted surveillance of the phones of dozens of Associated Press journalists, raised questions regarding the ability of journalists to protect their sources and cast a pall over free speech protections in the United States. Ongoing challenges include the threat to media diversity stemming from poor economic conditions for the news industry, as well as the lack of protection-of-sources legislation at the federal level.
...
It is notable that three of the eight worst press freedom abusers in the world—Belarus, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan—are found in Eurasia. Other countries of special concern in the region include Russia and Azerbaijan. The media environment in Russia, whose score remained at 81, is characterized by the use of a pliant judiciary to prosecute independent journalists, impunity for the physical harassment and murder of journalists, and continued state control or influence over almost all traditional media outlets. In 2013, the Russian government enacted additional legal restrictions on freedom of speech. Among the year’s most prominent developments was the December decision by President Vladimir Putin to abolish one of Russia’s oldest state-owned news agencies, RIA Novosti, and fold it into a new entity called Rossiya Segodnya (Russia Today), which would be run by pro-Kremlin television commentator Dmitriy Kiselyov. While bloggers and journalists, as well as radio and television broadcasters, are successfully utilizing the internet to reach audiences interested in alternative and more balanced sources of information, the government has begun to use a combination of the law, the courts, and regulatory pressure to extend its crackdown to online media.
...
The United Kingdom registered both positive and negative trends in 2013, leading to a net decline from 21 to 23 points. A long-awaited reform of the libel laws raised the threshold for initiating cases and has the potential to curb “libel tourism.” However, a number of negative developments stemmed from the government’s response to the revelations of surveillance by the NSA and its British counterpart, Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). Authorities used the Terrorism Act to detain the partner of investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald, who broke the story; raided the offices of the Guardian newspaper and destroyed hard drives containing potentially sensitive source materials; and subsequently threatened the Guardian with further action. In the wake of the 2011 News of the World phone-hacking scandal and the Leveson inquiry that followed, the establishment of a new regulatory body to oversee print media also raised concerns among some observers.
http://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-press-2014/overview-essay#.U1UqwvldW_E
(FWIW, Ukraine went from 60 to 63, and thus from Partly Free to Not Free; this was for 2013, and thus about conditions under the old regime)