The Vigilant Citizen Articles Compilation by Vigilant Citizen

Having said that, the RWB report raises critical issues that are worthy of public attention and informed debate.įor instance, it warns that “political actors in their countries were often, or systematically, involved in massive disinformation or propaganda campaigns. For example, in the US assessment, the continuing attack by Donald Trump on the media is one of the criteria. The report also does not imply that government action against journalists is the main reason for the ranking of countries, although it is definitely so in countries with authoritarian regimes. A discerning public, which expects media to adhere to these standards in order to maintain credibility, would be rightly concerned at the omission of these requirements from the definition that RWB used as the methodology for the compilation of its index.

In this sense, it appears to give a free pass to media publications, whose reporting falls short of these standards. There is no mention in the definition of the obligation of journalists to report at high standards of objectivity, responsibility and accuracy. Sign up for The Gleaner’s morning and evening newsletters. The methodology that RWB employed in compiling the index is based on its own definition of press freedom, which it describes as: “the ability of journalists as individuals and collectives to select, produce, and disseminate news in the public interest, independent of political, economic, legal, and social interference, and in the absence of threats to their physical and mental safety”. Conditions in each of them are not uniform. Therefore, the OECS ranking at 93 is not an accurate reflection of media freedom in its six member states individually. Therefore, The Bahamas and Barbados are not examined, and the six independent nations of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) are lumped as one, distorting the situation in each country individually. However, the index excluded countries with populations of less than 300,000. The index, compiled by Reporters Without Borders (RWB), was released on May 3 to mark the 30th anniversary of World Press Freedom Day – a designation of the United Nations General Assembly.

The United States of America is relegated to 45. Caribbean countries appear in the index with Trinidad and Tobago at 30, Jamaica at 32, Suriname at 48, Belize at 51, Guyana at 60, and Haiti at 99. Costa Rica in Central America is rated at 23. In a measurement of 180 countries and territories, only Canada - rated at 15 – secured a place among the top 20 best-performing countries. Media freedom in the Americas, from Canada in the North to Argentina in the South, with the Caribbean in-between, did not rank very well in the 2023 World Press Freedom (WPF) Index.

The Vigilant Citizen Articles Compilation by Vigilant Citizen