World
Drastic Decline in Media Freedom Worldwide
A cartoon style drawing hangs outside France’s embassy that reads in Spanish “The pencil is the most peaceful weapon, don’t mess with humor” in solidarity with those killed in an attack at the Paris offices of the weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2015. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)
PARIS (The News) – Media freedom suffered a “drastic decline” worldwide last year in part because of extremist groups such as Islamic State and Boko Haram, the watchdog group Reporters Without Borders said in its annual evaluation released Thursday.
“There has been an overall deterioration linked to very different factors, with information wars, and action by non-state groups acting like news despots,” the head of the Paris-based group, Christophe Deloire, told AFP.
Pakistan and India stand at the 159tth and 136th position out of the 180 countries evaluated.
The Reporters Without Borders 2015 World Press Freedom Index stated that there was an eight percent increase in violations of freedom of information in 180 countries in 2014 compared to the 2013, according to its statistically weighted calculation.
All parties in conflicts raging in the Middle East and Ukraine were waging “a fearsome information war” where media personnel were directly targeted to be killed, captured or pressured to relay propaganda, it said.
