Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Freedom Index 2006

The World Press Freedom Index for 2006 has just come out. Published by Reporters Without Borders (Reporters Sans Frontiers), the Index shows that the United States has dropped another 12 points, so that we now sit at 53rd place, behind countries like Ghana and Mali, and far behind Bolivia, which moved into the top 20 this year. Is that alarming, or what?

Our allies are also not doing very well: France fell to 35th, while Japan fell to 51st—which is still better than the US, although barely. North Korea came in at the bottom of the listing of 168 countries. So who’s at the top? Finland, followed by Iceland, Ireland, the Netherlands, and my friends in the Czech Republic. I like the Czechs because they published even my romances in hard cover, with great covers. I’m a huge best seller in the Czech Republic. Which of course has nothing to do with freedom of the press, but still…

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