Switzerland: press freedom isn’t eroded by post-truth era

8 years ago - Published in Finance, Fundamental Analysis

Reporters Without Borders (RWB) released its annual 2017 World Press Freedom Index which revealed Switzerland is still one of the world's top ten countries.

The annual Index is produced by Reporters without Borders (RWB), a French-based, international non-profit organization. The Index underlined the Swiss government’s current debate over the mandate of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SRG-SSR) and the future of Billag, the licence paid by the public. A potential 2018 referendum could see the end of Billag and therefore the end of SRG-SSR, it said.

The RSF report is being published annually since 2002. The rating of press freedom in 180 countries bases on the conditional indicator, formed on the responses of experts around the world to the questionnaire and on the number of acts of violence against journalists during the period under review. 

The top 10 countries are Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Costa Rica, Switzerland, Jamaica, Belgium and Iceland.
The Index showed an increase in the number of countries with severely restricted press freedom, stressing that attacks on the press have become commonplace, according to the human rights organization. The RSF stressed that the modern world reached an era of "propaganda and suppression of freedom, in particular, in democratic states."

Italy showed the biggest improvement, rising 25 places to 52nd place thanks to the acquittal of journalists tried in the Vatileaks II case, which exposed scandal at the top of the Catholic Church.

Nicaragua registered the biggest fall of 17 places with the controversial re-election of President Daniel Ortega "marked by many cases of censorship, intimidation, harassment and arbitrary arrest," the RSF said.
Liberty of the press is in peril or in a "very serious situation" in 72 countries including Russia, India and China, it found.

"Attacks on the media have become commonplace and strongmen are on the rise. We have reached the age of post-truth, propaganda, and suppression of freedoms — especially in democracies," the report said.

"Donald Trump's rise to power… and the Brexit campaign were marked by high-profile media-bashing, a highly toxic anti-media discourse that drove the world into a new era of post-truth, disinformation and fake news," it added.