Only 14.5 per cent of the world’s residents live in country with a free press. So says Freedom House, which monitors the state of the press on a global basis. Forty-five per cent of residents experience a “partly free” press, while 40.5 per cent live in “not free” environments, according to a 2012 survey of the world’s 197 countries.
Freedom House recently released its Freedom of the Press 2012 report, which conducts extensive surveys of how free journalists are to pursue investigative work. Put another way, Freedom House states that 33.5 per cent of countries are rated “free,” 36.5 per cent “partly free” and 30 per cent “not free.” (Please note that the Freedom House news release is confusing for several reasons, including the fact that it refers to both 2011 and 2012).

I am surprised at the low number of residents living in an environment with a “not free” press, although it makes sense demographically, if one takes into account that proportionally, much of the world’s populations live in “developing” countries or China.

In addition, several disturbing trends emerged amongst countries like Chile, Russia, Iran, Venezuala, Hungary and China, where freedom declined. However, bright spots emerged in countries in which dictators were removed, like Egypt, Libya and Tunisia. Other countries that showed improvement included Burma, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines and Zambia.

For its part, Canada scored 25th, while Jamaica scored 23rd. Check out the full report here. I would have thought Canada would score higher, but perhaps Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s strict controls on journalistic access to politicians and bureaucrats is having an effect.