The United Nations General Assembly declared 3 May to be World Press Freedom Day to raise awareness of the importance of freedom of the press and remind governments of their duty to respect and uphold the right to freedom of expression enshrined under Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and marking the anniversary of the Declaration of Windhoek, a statement of free press principles put together by African newspaper journalists in 1991.
Freedom of the press is the freedom of communication and expression through vehicles including various electronic media and published materials. While such freedom mostly implies the absence of interference from an overreaching state, its preservation may be sought through constitutional or other legal protections.
With respect to governmental information, any government may distinguish which materials are public or protected from disclosure to the public based on classification of information as sensitive, classified or secret and being otherwise protected from disclosure due to relevance of the information to protecting the national interest. Many governments are also subject to sunshine laws or freedom of information legislation that are used to define the ambit of national interest.
According to Reporters Without Borders, more than a third of the world's people live in countries where there is no press freedom. Overwhelmingly, these people live in countries where there is no system of democracy or where there are serious deficiencies in the democratic process. Freedom of the press is an extremely problematic problem/concept for most non-democratic systems of government since, in the modern age, strict control of access to information is critical to the existence of most non-democratic governments and their associated control systems and security apparatus.
World opinion is divided on the importance of having a free press, according to a poll conducted for the BBC World Service in 2007. Of those interviewed, 56% thought that freedom of the press was very important to ensure a free society but 40% said it was more important to maintain social harmony and peace, even if it meant curbing the press's freedom to report news truthfully. The strongest endorsement came from North America and Western Europe, where up to 70% put freedom first, followed by Venezuela, Kenya and South Africa, with over 60%. In India, Singapore and Russia, by contrast, more people favoured stability over press freedom.
Freedom of the Press is a yearly report by US-based non-governmental organization Freedom House, measuring the level of freedom and editorial independence enjoyed by the press in every nation and significant disputed territories around the world. Levels of freedom are scored on a scale from 1 (most free) to 100 (least free). Depending on the basics, the nations are then classified as "Free", "Partly Free", or "Not Free". If you would like to see the results of this report - which differs slightly from the Reporters Without Borders freedom of the press index - then click on the third link at the bottom of this post.
Every year, Reporters Without Borders establishes a ranking of countries in terms of their freedom of the press. Below is the ranking for 2009:
1 Denmark 0.00
1 Finland 0.00
1 Ireland 0.00
1 Norway 0.00
1 Sweden 0.00
6 Estonia 0.50
7 Netherlands 1.00
7 Switzerland 1.00
9 Iceland 2.00
10 Lithuania 2.25
11 Belgium 2.50
11 Malta 2.50
13 Austria 3.00
13 Latvia 3.00
13 New Zealand 3.00
16 Australia 3.13
17 Japan 3.25
18 Germany 3.50
19 Canada 3.70
20 Luxembourg 4.00
20 United Kingdom 4.00
20 United States 4.00
23 Jamaica 4.75
24 Czech Republic 5.00
25 Cyprusa 5.50
25 Hungary 5.50
27 Ghana 6.00
28 Trinidad and Tobago 7.00
29 Uruguay 7.63
30 Costa Rica 8.00
30 Mali 8.00
30 Portugal 8.00
33 South Africa 8.50
34 Macedonia 8.75
35 Greece 9.00
35 Namibia 9.00
37 Poland 9.50
37 Slovenia 9.50
39 Bosnia and Herzegovina 10.50
39 Chile 10.50
39 Guyana 10.50 42 Suriname 10.60
43 France 10.67
44 Cape Verde 11.00
44 Slovakia 11.00
44 Spain 11.00
47 Argentina 11.33
48 Hong Kong 11.75
Grenada 12.00
49 Italy 12.14
50 Romania 12.50
51 Northern Cyprusb 14.00
51 Maldives 14.00
51 Mauritius 14.00
54 Paraguay 14.33
55 Panama 14.50
56 Papua New Guinea 14.70
57 Burkina Faso 15.00
57 Haiti 15.00
59 Republic of China (Taiwan) 15.08
60 Kuwait 15.25
61 Lebanon 15.42
62 Botswana 15.50
63 Liberia 15.50
63 Malawi 15.50
63 Serbiac 15.50
63 Tanzania 15.50
63 Togo 15.50
68 Bulgaria 15.61
69 South Korea 15.67
70 Bhutan 15.75
71 Brazil 15.88
72 Benin 16.00
72 Seychelles 16.00
72 Timor-Leste 16.00
75 Kosovod 16.58
76 Nicaragua 16.75
77 Montenegroc 17.00
78 Croatia 17.17
79 El Salvador 17.25
80 Central African Republic 17.75
Tonga 18.00
81 Georgia 18.83
82 Comoros 19.00
82 Mozambique 19.00
84 Ecuador 20.00
85 Peru 20.88
86 Uganda 21.50
86 United Arab Emirates 21.50
88 Albania 21.75
89 Senegal 22.00
89 Ukraine 22.00
91 Mongolia 23.33
92 Guinea-Bissau 23.50
93 Israel (Israeli territory) 23.75
94 Qatar 24.00
95 Bolivia 24.17
96 Kenya 25.00
97 Zambia 26.75
98 Dominican Republic 26.83
99 Lesotho 27.50
100 Guinea 28.50
100 Indonesia 28.50
100 Mauritania 28.50
103 Burundi 29.00
103 Côte d'Ivoire 29.00
105 India 29.33
106 Guatemala 29.50
106 Oman 29.50
108 United States (extra-territorial) 30.00
109 Cameroon 30.50
110 Djibouti 31.00
111 Armenia 31.13
112 Jordan 31.88
113 Tajikistan 32.00
114 Moldova 33.75
115 Sierra Leone 34.00
116 Republic of the Congo 34.75
117 Cambodia 35.17
118 Nepal 35.63
119 Angola 36.50
119 Bahrain 36.50
121 Bangladesh 37.33
122 Philippines 38.25
122 Turkey 38.25
124 Venezuela 39.50
125 Kyrgyzstan 40.00
126 Colombia 40.13
127 Morocco 41.00
128 Honduras 42.00
129 Gabon 43.50
130 Thailand 44.00
131 Malaysia 44.25
132 Chad 44.50
133 Singapore 45.00
134 Madagascar 45.83
135 Nigeria 46.00
136 Zimbabwe 46.50
137 Gambia 48.25
137 Mexico 48.25
139 Niger 48.50
140 Ethiopia 49.00
141 Algeria 49.56
142 Kazakhstan 49.67
143 Egypt 51.38
144 Swaziland 52.50
145 Iraq 53.30
146 Azerbaijan 53.50
146 Democratic Republic of the Congo 53.50
148 Sudan 54.00
149 Afghanistan 54.25
150 Israel (extra-territorial) 55.50
151 Belarus 59.50
152 Fiji 60.00
153 Russia 60.88
154 Tunisia 61.50
155 Brunei 63.50
156 Libya 64.50
157 Rwanda 64.67
158 Equatorial Guinea 65.50
159 Pakistan 65.67
160 Uzbekistan 67.67
161 Palestinian Authority 69.83
162 Sri Lanka 75.00
163 Saudi Arabia 76.50
164 Somalia 77.50
165 Syria 78.00
166 Vietnam 81.67
167 Yemen 83.38
168 People's Republic of China 84.50
169 Laos 92.00
170 Cuba 94.00
171 Myanmar 102.67
172 Iran 104.14
173 Turkmenistan 107.00
174 North Korea 112.5
175 Eritrea 115.50
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