Compared to last year, this year’s index saw a lot more movement in the rankings, reflecting instability in the media environment. Photo credit: Freepik.
Paris, May 3 (CTK) – The Czech Republic has improved its position in the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) media freedom index, now ranking 14th out of the 180 monitored countries, up from 20th last year. The report released today was the 21st annual study of its kind from RSF.
Norway tops the ranking, while North Korea is last. Neighbouring Slovakia is ranked 17th, compared to 27th in 2022.
Working conditions for journalists are rated as “poor” in seven out of ten countries, while in the remaining third, they are satisfactory, wrote RSF in the report.
In the Czech Republic, press freedom is threatened by the high concentration of private media and pressure on public broadcasting, the RSF report says.
It views the significant concentration of large media groups such as PPF and MAFRA in the hands of big economically powerful players as characteristic of the Czech media market. Another trend is the rise of independent media in response to developments in society. The third trend is the strong presence of public media, which are, however, under more and stronger political pressure.
Compared to last year, this year’s index saw a lot more movement in the rankings, reflecting the instability of the media environment, the authors point out.
RSF considers what they call the “industrial production of disinformation” to be the biggest problem for journalists today. The organisation also warns of the remarkable development of artificial intelligence causing chaos in the media world.
The new owner of Twitter, Elon Musk, is also a major contributor to the confused media environment, said RSF, challenging his arbitrary approach to information based on payments.
According to the RSF assessment, the freest region for journalists is the combined Europe and Central Asia region, where conditions are good in 15% of countries and satisfactory in 40%. In Asia, by contrast, conditions are very poor in 28% of countries, and in the Middle East and North Africa, in more than half of them.
