Of course, there are plenty of journalistic nuances that aren’t always evident in press freedom indices like those from Freedom House or Reporters Without Borders. In Qatar, for example, journalists are often free to boldly report on the governments of other countries, but may not cross the royals in Doha. Most daily newspapers in Kuwait are privately owned and can be quite vocal. Dailies in the United Arab Emirates are owned mostly by well-heeled royals and stirred by their silver spoons, but there are free speech protections for foreign media organizations operating from, say, Dubai.
Nuance aside, stifled speech tends to be the rule in the world’s rentier economies, and robust press protections a narrow exception. Rent-rich governments tend to host media systems that are free-speech poor.
Well hello, Venezuela IS a fledgling democracy. Freedom House is funded by the US State department (not an exact lover of democracy) and has often been staffed by necons. Please get your facts right.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Freedom_House
It was the democracy loving US government which tried to depose Hugo Chavez through a military coup, but defeated by a popular uprising. Jimmy Carter's group has certified Venezuela's as among the freest election in the world (He can't say the same thing about our own here in US, with a straight face). Let's be clear - Freedom House doesn't love non-capitalist countries, plain and simple.
#1 Posted by Ashley Cotton, CJR on Fri 15 Jun 2012 at 04:12 AM