Philippines down 2 spots in World Press Freedom Index
MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines dropped two places in the 2020 World Press Freedom Index, sliding to the 136th place out of 180 countries and regions.
The annual press freedom list, produced by the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (Reporters Sans Frontieres or RSF), noted how State troll armies in some countries, including the Philippines, use the weapon of disinformation on social media.
The information brief on the Philippines likewise cited the Duterte administration’s response to critical journalism such as the harassment of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, ABS-CBN, and Rappler and its CEO Maria Ressa.
“The persecution has been accompanied by online harassment campaigns waged by pro-Duterte troll armies, which also launched cyber-attacks on alternative news websites and the site of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines, in order to block them,” it said.
The Index is compiled by assessing the level of pluralism, media independence, the environment for the media and self-censorship, the legal framework, transparency, and the quality of infrastructure that supports the production of news and information in 180 countries.
“It does not evaluate government policy,” it noted.
Norway topped this year’s list while Turkmenistan and North Korea are in the 179th and 180th place respectively.
The Index also suggests that the next ten years will be pivotal for press freedom due to “converging crises”, such as: geopolitical crisis (due to the aggressiveness of authoritarian regimes); a technological crisis (due to a lack of democratic guarantees); a democratic crisis (due to polarisation and repressive policies); a crisis of trust (due to suspicion and even hatred of the media); and an economic crisis (impoverishing quality journalism).
“These five areas of crisis – the effects of which the Index’s methodology allows us to evaluate – are now compounded by a global public health crisis,” it said.
Read the full Index here. https://rsf.org/en/2020-world-press-freedom-index-entering-decisive-decade-journalism-exacerbated-coronavirus
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