The 2005 press freedom ranking

The 2005 press freedom ranking compiled by the " Reporters without borders" is out. There has been a lot of movement in the middle, most notably the decline of the United States from 22nd to 44th place, while at top and bottom there is little movement with North Korea firmly claiming the last place. I'm sure the report will make it into the media (maybe not in the lower quadrant) and finger pointing, questioning and spinning will take place. The report is quite interesting proving the claims wrong that press freedom (fostered by democracy) both needs wealth and a long development time. East Timor is a shining example, being one of the youngest countries and topping all its Asian neighbours.

	2002	2003	2004	2005
USA	17	31	22	44
USA (outside)	-	135	108	137
Germany	7	8	11	18
Singapore	-	144	147	140
Malaysia	110	104	122	113
Indonesia	57	110	117	102
Thailand	65	82	59	107
Myanmar	137	164	165	163
East Timor	-	30	57	58
Guinea	117	139	133	133

And its nice to see that Singapore has improve its ranking, while it still has to catch up with its immediate neighbours. I have "normalized" the values to the base 100, the result is the graph below.



We should never forget, that freedom is not 10 different types of cereals on your supermarket shelf, but: " Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently." (We had that Lady before)