Chile drops 47 places in press freedom ranking to number 80
Chile drops 47 places in press freedom ranking to number 80
January 25, 2012 | Filed under: HEADLINES,NEWS | Posted by: Anishka Gheewala
In the 2011/2012 Reporters Without Borders (also know as Reporters Sans Frontiers or RSF) index Chile went down 47 spots for freedom of the press, in what was a challenging year for journalists across the world, but above all in the Arab world during its ‘Arab Spring’ of revolution. Finland topped the list while Eritrea while African nation Eritrea had the worst ranking.
“Crackdown was the word of the year in 2011. Never has freedom of information been so closely associated with democracy. Never have journalists, through their reporting, vexed the enemies of freedom so much. Never have acts of censorship and physical attacks on journalists seemed so numerous” reported RSF.
Chile is now number 80 of 179 along with Serbia, Bulgaria, and Paraguay whereas it was number 33 out of 178 previously. According to the report “The Chilean media suffer from an extraordinary concentration of ownership, in fact, most of them are owned by just two companies”, one being Copesa and the other El Mercurio.
They are provided with 5 million dollars in subsidies from the government which has been established since General Augusto Pinochet’s regime and has not changed with the transition to democracy. Certain situations are described as continually “sensitive” such as the indigenous Mapuche situation, and environmental issues such as the HydroAysén dams, and have been known to cause trouble for journalists.
More:
http://ilovechile.cl/2012/01/25/chile-drops-47-places-press-freedom-ranking-number-80/46122
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