World Press Freedom Index, 2016

Description

The press freedom index that Reporters Without Borders publishes every year measures the level of freedom of information in nearly 180 countries. It reflects the degree of freedom that journalists, news organizations and netizens enjoy in each country, and the efforts made by the authorities to respect and ensure respect for this freedom. It is based partly on a questionnaire that is sent to our partner organizations (18 freedom of expression NGOs located in all five continents), to our network of 150 correspondents, and to journalists, researchers, jurists and human rights activists. The 179 countries ranked in this year’s index are those for which Reporters Without Borders received completed questionnaires from various sources. Some countries were not included because of a lack of reliable, confirmed data. A score and a position are assigned to each country in the final ranking. They are complementary indicators that together assess the state of press freedom. In order to make the index more informative and make it easier to compare different years, scores will henceforth range from 0 to 100, with 0 being the best possible score and 100 the worst. The index reflects the situation during a specific period. This year’s index is based solely on events between the start of December 2012 and the end of November 2013. It does not look at human rights violations in general, just violations of freedom of information. The index should in no way be taken as an indication of the quality of the media in the countries concerned.