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Journalists in the UK are less free to hold power to account than those working in South Africa, Chile or Lithuania, according to an index of press freedom around the world.
Laws permitting generalised surveillance, as well as a proposal for a new espionage act that could criminalise journalists and whistleblowers as spies, were cited by Reporters Without Borders as it knocked the UK down two places from last year, to 40th out of 180 countries in its World Press Freedom Index.
In the past five years, the UK has slipped 12 places down the index. Rebecca Vincent, RSF's UK bureau director, said this year's ranking would have been worse were it not for a general decline in press freedom around the world, making journalists in Britain comparatively better off than those in countries such as Turkey and Syria.
[...] Among the concerns raised by RSF was the passage of the UK's "menacing" Investigatory Powers Act last November, which met only token resistance within parliament, despite giving UK intelligence agencies and police the most sweeping surveillance powers in the western world.
RSF said the act was a possible "death sentence" for investigative journalism in Britain, owing to its lack of protections for whistleblowers, journalists and their sources, and that it set a damaging precedent for other countries to follow.
Source: The Guardian
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 28 2017, @11:05AM (1 child)
Considering the UK is the basis for 1984 I'm surprised they make it that high and the US being at 43 seems I don't know optimistic considering they don't have any non state news agencies
(Score: 4, Insightful) by butthurt on Friday April 28 2017, @11:52AM
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-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Associated_Press [wikipedia.org]
UPI was purchased in May 2000 by News World Communications, a media conglomerate founded by Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon, which also owned The Washington Times and various newspapers in South Korea, Japan, and South America.
-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UPI#Current_ownership [wikipedia.org]
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-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloomberg_News [wikipedia.org]
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-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_News_Agency [wikipedia.org]
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-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_News_Service [wikipedia.org]
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-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservative_News_Agency_of_New_York_%28CNA-NY%29 [wikipedia.org]