US Plunges To 46th In World Press Freedom Index 357
schwit1 writes "Reporters Without Borders puts out their Press Freedom Index every year, and the 2014 ranking came out today. It was not a good showing for the U.S. Specifically, the U.S. registered one of the steepest falls of all nations, down 13 slots to the #46 position, just above Haiti and just below Romania."
Alternative media are the solution! (Score:2, Insightful)
When all the news source belong to big corporations, how can one be surprised that press freedom is disappearing ?
One solution [altslashdot.org]
Re:How does press freedom drop because of leaks? (Score:2, Insightful)
What is inferred is also the taking to task of journalists and their sources, which previously, have been sacred and off limits -- akin to a Catholic confessional. These days, journalists are being forced to reveal their sources, which precludes good journalism. The Fourth Estate needs to be protected.
Re:How does press freedom drop because of leaks? (Score:4, Insightful)
Because those making the leaks need to flee the country and take asylum elsewhere, or end up imprisoned for years.
It's not about the presence of the leaks, it's about the way that the government has persecuted the leakers, and the members of the press they went to.
Re:How does press freedom drop because of leaks? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to defend America or anything, (Score:5, Insightful)
but this is just a rank based on a number calculated according to an arbitrary weighting of factors. It is possible that the rank drop of the US might have been less had the factors used in calculating the score been weighted differently, or the cases used to arrive at the score been characterized somewhat differently.
For example, the score weights "Pluralism" twice as much as "self-censorship" and four times as much as "transparency". Why? Can such things be weighted precisely at all?
The scores for these factors are likewise arbitrarily scaled numbers in the range 0-100. The ranking of each country is a linear combination of non-parametric factors; as such the rank on such a score is so arbitrary as to be practically meaningless, or at best very imprecise.
I think such a score might have some value in comparing a country's performance to its prior performance, or even to compare progress made in one country vs. another -- provided it is taken with a large grain of salt. But the nature of the score is such that very little can be inferred about country A vs. country B based on their relative ranks.
As a liberal geek I'm all up for harsh criticism of America as a nascent plutocracy, but this particular story is just manufactured controversy.
Re:We're the best country in the world!!! Woo!! (Score:5, Insightful)
They do care but between trying to financially keep their heads above water and fighting off the urge to watch Duck Dynasty they have little time to enact change.
Well that was sarcasm but life is so busy that things like government tyranny fall by the wayside. Our lives are just comfortable and busy enough to allow us to ignore the greater issues at hand. Ask a person today what their concerns are and I bet its going to be things like job security, getting a better job to make more money or keeping their head above water. Government tyranny is just low enough to let us not care. Then throw in the incentive for social problems and you have the foundation for a pacifying system to keep people just above poverty and starving so they do revolt.
Re:How does press freedom drop because of leaks? (Score:2, Insightful)
Because those making the leaks need to flee the country and take asylum elsewhere, or end up imprisoned for years.
It's not about the presence of the leaks, it's about the way that the government has persecuted the leakers, and the members of the press they went to.
First of all... IF Snowden is a LEAKER then, by definition and by virtue of the paperwork he signed the government has the right (if not the obligation) to haul his butt into criminal court and store his living carcass in jail for long periods of time. If convicted of treason, the government can convert his living carcass into a dead one to be stored below ground until the here after arrives.
So watch your choice of words... It's "Whistle Blower!" not "leaker" or the argument is lost before you start.
Re:We're the best country in the world!!! Woo!! (Score:5, Insightful)
We can't have Land of the Free OR Home of the brave.
Because we are afraid of everything, we have elected to give up our freedom in trade of safety.
After 9/11 there was little talk about this attacks being the price we may pay to live in a free society, and more talks about how to stop it again. Then we complained how these people were even allowed on the plane before, because of lack of proper intelligence.
After the Boston Marathon Bombing, citizens gladly sacrificed their freedom and locked themselves at home until the bomber was caught. Then we complained left and right how we could have let these minor hints get us by and let these people back into the us.
We Cannot live in a free society when we are afraid of the bad man getting us. To live in a free society we need to stand up and face these problems even if it means our death.
Re:How does press freedom drop because of leaks? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because those making the leaks need to flee the country and take asylum elsewhere, or end up imprisoned for years.
It's not about the presence of the leaks, it's about the way that the government has persecuted the leakers, and the members of the press they went to.
First of all... IF Snowden is a LEAKER then, by definition and by virtue of the paperwork he signed the government has the right (if not the obligation) to haul his butt into criminal court and store his living carcass in jail for long periods of time. If convicted...
The government does NOT have a "right" to incarcerate a person indefinitely, without convicting them of a crime.
Conversely, Edward Snowden does have a right to a fair and free trial, to face his accusers and the evidence they present against him, and to be judged by a jury of his peers.
None of which will happen under the current government.
Re:Hope and Change (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:We're the best country in the world!!! Woo!! (Score:1, Insightful)
The ones that care are called:
a) Racist bigots (for affiliating with "Tea Party Extremists" when they only want a balanced budget and reasonable cuts to defense and wasteful spending).
b) Gun zealots when they stand up for their right to bear arms (especially when someone invokes dead children as their weapon of degradation against gun rights). And no - aside from reasonable bans on fully automatic weapons and other heavy military hardware, there's not really a good middleground by half measures like magazine size caps or unenforceable registration laws.
Selfish jerks for wanting wasteful social spending cuts on the poor that seems to be fine with using SNAP funds for booze, etc. (Yes, they're a minority, but a substantial one.)
Intolerant bigots for wanting to worship who or what they may - and want laws reflecting their beliefs (as long as they don't conflict with basic civil rights - and I don't mean the ever expansion of civil rights to include every minority created by individuals for their own benefit.)
Ignorant racists for questioning this administration.
Ignorant terrorist supporters for questioning the last administration.
The groups described above are generally either directly assaulted by (or blatantly marketed to) elements in the press because they think for themselves - and whether they're right or wrong, they're - well - dangerous...
Re:We're the best country in the world!!! Woo!! (Score:4, Insightful)
Freedom to say only what people consider nice and acceptable is no freedom at all. Any country that has "hate speech" laws has no grounds to criticize US lack of free speech.
Re:We're the best country in the world!!! Woo!! (Score:5, Insightful)
you act like racism and bigotry don't exist, and it's just a ploy to smear people
that's some convoluted psychological denial going on there
They changed their methodology (Score:5, Insightful)
Not that I'm totally happy with the situation, but I wonder if this story is a bit exaggerated. Reporters Without Borders says that they made changes to their methodology. Suddenly the U.S. drops in rank. I think those two facts are related.
Re:How does press freedom drop because of leaks? (Score:5, Insightful)
None of which will happen under the current government.
How on earth can you KNOW that he would be unfairly treated?
You mean, aside from the existence of Gitmo, the repeated threats of death from various US officials, and the treatment Bradley/Chelsea Manning received when he/she was suspected of whistle-blowing?
Re:We're the best country in the world!!! Woo!! (Score:3, Insightful)
What does ANY of those issues have to do with Freedom of Press? You seem to fit into the category of people who just change the subject to rant about your own pet peeves.
Re:We're the best country in the world!!! Woo!! (Score:5, Insightful)
At least, that's the story that the right-wing news sources you use would like you to believe.
Then, too, you have those that call people:
"Gay agenda" for believing that big government doesn't have a place dictating who you can or can't marry.
"Tax and spend liberal" for trying to rebuild the crumbling roads, waterways, and other infrastructure all around us.
"Hostile to business" for expecting that we not grossly pollute the air and water around us that we all depend on.
"Socialist" for expecting that insurance be available to everybody.
Both sides have their merits.
Re:We're the best country in the world!!! Woo!! (Score:4, Insightful)
Dude, read the damn article. This has nothing to do with the left-right hotbutton issues you're talking about. Our press is manifestly free to make all the points you make, on repeat, 24 hours a day.
This is about silencing of whistleblowers and the legal harassment of the reporters who report leaked information. It has zero to do with the Tea Party, or any specific difference between the Republicans and the Democrats, who are equally complicit in this.
Re:We're the best country in the world!!! Woo!! (Score:1, Insightful)
And no - aside from reasonable bans on fully automatic weapons and other heavy military hardware
How are those reasonable? Once you've accepted that the 2nd amendment protects people's right to own modern weaponry, why is certain weaponry off-limits? As far as I'm concerned, all gun control is a violation of the 2nd. To fix this, if you believe it needs to be fixed, you'd need to amend the constitution, not just ignore it and call the bans "reasonable."
Re:We're the best country in the world!!! Woo!! (Score:5, Insightful)
There's no need to suppress press. The US found that out long ago.
People want to see war pics. So they only "invite" you to report if you report favorably. If you'd consider reporting something that conflicts with the "good guy" image, you're not going to get support by the powers that are. You will not be able to show those great, ratings-boosting clips where our boys kick some serious enemy ass with futuristic weapons.
It's just so win-win. If you comply, you will have great pics that not only boost the US image but also your ratings. If you dare to oppose, your news will be boring, which makes your ratings drop, which also has the "nice" side effect that fewer people are going to hear it.
Re:We're the best country in the world!!! Woo!! (Score:5, Insightful)
But I can't recall hearing anyone saying "Thank god the police came and locked everything down and started busting in our doors trying to find this guy!"
You don't live near Boston, then. People were pretty much saying exactly that. I'd hate to think what the ancestors who started the American Revolution would think of the people who live here now...
Re:We're the best country in the world!!! Woo!! (Score:4, Insightful)
As the song says, though, there's a place in the world for the angry young man... and some people never outgrow it. We need more of those people. Yeah, a lot of people's lives don't leave much time for activism, but then, it doesn't take much time either. Hell, as a singer, Billy Joel ought to know that; an awful lot of music, some of it very successful, has been explicitly political in nature. People discuss politics all the time. It's not that much harder to go beyond merely talking about it to taking a stand on it, even if just in those discussions. Hell, a lot of people *do* take stands. Unfortunately, most of them simply seem to stand on some party line and parrot their favorite talking heads' bullet points. Real thought, well informed and independent of partisan viewpoints, apparently *is* hard to come by in the world at large, and (as Joel again hints in Angry Young Man) most people seem to find it "boring as hell".
As for life going on, tell that to the people in Vietnam (residents or American soldiers). Tell that to the people who lived under the Taliban. Tell that to the German Jews circa 1940. Tell that to... you get the idea. Middle-class American life may go on (although it also may not; tell that to the people who lost their jobs, whose homes were foreclosed on, when the recession hit...) but the world is bigger than that. Besides, short of an extinction level event, "life" may go on... but that doesn't mean it'll be good living. Life went on in the Dark Ages too. We need higher standards than "life went on"!
Re:How does press freedom drop because of leaks? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, they can't win. If they stay anonymous, people will call it fake. If they go public, they're attention whores.
It's actually sad how we treat people who put their very life on the line to protect our liberty.
Re:We're the best country in the world!!! Woo!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Do you feel uncomfortable driving threw minority neighborhood, do you lock your door just in case?
Even minorities are careful about locking their doors in neighborhoods with large minority populations. Those tend to be high-crime neighborhoods. People lock their doors regardless of the shade of skin of the people living in high-crime neighborhoods.
The fact that many neighborhoods with large numbers of minorities living there are largely coincident with high-crime areas may be a result of a legacy of racism, but locking your doors in high-crime areas is not in itself racist.
"driving threw minority neighborhood"
Am I to assume that you're not a native speaker and therefore likely minority? Just asking, my wife is a minority and not a native speaker and often makes similar errors. We also spend a lot of time in Lao & Hispanic neighborhoods and we, like the Lao people we're visiting, do lock our doors.
[I realize it properly should be Laotian. But if they say Lao, I do too.]
Re:We're the best country in the world!!! Woo!! (Score:4, Insightful)
"stand your ground" or "castle laws" are not a new invention of the American right. They are based on rights that have existed forever. "I get to keep you from taking my stuff" is a pretty ancient and basic right.
Arbitrary - USA Still about 2006, 2011 Rankings (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:We're the best country in the world!!! Woo!! (Score:4, Insightful)
Except when you get to report on your own buildings [aljazeera.com] and journalists [reuters.com] being targeted by the US Army. I'm surprised it has taken this long for the US to drop in the World Press Freedom index to be honest, given their attitude to free press outside their borders.
Re:We're the best country in the world!!! Woo!! (Score:4, Insightful)
The tea party is not and never will be the answer to the problems of the US due to their rabid irrational policies, their inability to relate cause and effect and their complete disdain for analysis, science and research. (those last two are related) Not to mention their bat shit crazy candidates.
No, the "Tea party" (there is no such thing) is not and will probably never be the answer to problems in the US because the media has focused on a very, very small, loud, and moronic corner of the movement in an uncoordinated smear campaign. Your vitriol is warranted, but only against the small target that the media has set you on. You've been duped.
What's worse is that the weak-brained have been told that the tea party movement is a good home for them. They are flocking to this "ideal environment" in droves, strangling an otherwise important political movement.
As for the Republican party, they've tried to co-opt the thing, to varying degrees of success. Most "tea-party" candidates are nothing of the sort. They just fly someone else's banner in order to get elected.
At the meetings that I've seen (from the edges), there was always an honest call for bi-partisanship, welcoming everyone from all political stripes. That's largely gone now that the Democrats, Republicans, and media have all taken the position that "the tea party" is a Republican thing. There are still people who hold out hope that it can operate in a bi-partisan (or non-partisan) fashion.
Re:We're the best country in the world!!! Woo!! (Score:2, Insightful)
The fact that you get children to recite a loyalty oath is seriously disturbing, regardless of whether it contains religious references.