Significant decline in Iceland press freedom

Iceland is one of four countries sharing seventh place in a new ranking of press freedom, according to new data.

Good European scores

The 2015 Freedom of the Press report, produced by US-based research and advocacy organisation Freedom House, has analysed press freedom in 199 countries and territories.

Each is given a total ‘press freedom score’ from 0 (best) to 100 (worst) on the basis of 23 questions regarding the legal, political and economic environment in which the press of the country in question operates.

Norway and Sweden share first place with a score of 10. Iceland is in joint seventh place (together with Estonia, Ireland and San Marino) with a score of 16. European countries make up fifteen of the twenty freest press countries in the world.

Iceland in “significant decline”

Iceland’s score of 16 is, however, a decline of four points from 12 the previous year. This places Iceland among the countries with the biggest press-freedom declines in 2014, keeping company with countries such as Serbia, Egypt and South Sudan.

According to the report, the decline is Iceland’s score is “due to political interference with the work of journalists, who face the threat of criminal defamation charges and the possibility of retaliatory dismissal by employers.

Partisanship affects the private media, and the state has exerted increasing influence on the media sector through its dominance in the broadcast market and tighter editorial control of the public broadcaster”.

Overall global downturn

63 countries (including Iceland) are awarded the general ‘Free’ classification, 71 are classified as ‘Partly free’ and 65 as ‘Free’. The report points out that global press freedom has “declined sharply” since 2004, the average press-freedom score rising from 45.48 to 48.57 over that period. While 32% of countries are classed as ‘Free’, this equates to only 14% of the total world population (under 1 billion people).

The five countries/territories with the best press-freedom score this year are Norway, Sweden, Belgium, Finland and the Netherlands. The bottom five are Crimea, Eritrea, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and North Korea.

The full text of the report can be found here.