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posted by martyb on Friday April 28 2017, @08:41AM   Printer-friendly
from the british-values dept.

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


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by linkdude64 on Friday April 28 2017, @02:52PM (5 children)

    by linkdude64 (5482) on Friday April 28 2017, @02:52PM (#501179)

    Sweden #2?

    From preventing the press from reporting "ethnic" names of suspects for rapes, beheadings, honor killings, etc. and then not allowing their mugshots to be shown on television, then actually giving them false Swedish names, I find it hard to believe that Sweden is in fact the most "Free" to report on their very real issues. A chief of police is under investigation for racism for stating that the majority of violent crimes that have "coincidentally" spiked along with refugee populations are, in fact, committed by refugees.

    Here's a video: A VICE journalist is ushered out of a refugee-dense "No Go Zone" by the fucking Police, because they noticed people were putting on masks in response to seeing the cameras, and reporters there are at risk for being physically attacked by "peaceful" migrants, which is then likely to kick off a riot, because the refugees are offended that they could ever be portrayed as violent by the evil white racists. Behead those who say Islam is violent, and all that.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODw7o34Vdbk [youtube.com]

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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 28 2017, @04:45PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 28 2017, @04:45PM (#501216)

    Lol, that is the least interesting video I've ever seen with zero evidence of anything except for the police van driving behind them which was claimed to be a coincidence. This following a riot just days before, seriously this is a non-news video that does nothing to advance your narrative.

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 28 2017, @06:05PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 28 2017, @06:05PM (#501245)

      Of course, a police van coincidentally matching their pace and direction with a group of pedestrians they just had a run-in with for several minutes is something that happens all the time.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 28 2017, @05:45PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 28 2017, @05:45PM (#501237)

    Freedom of the press is measured by the ability of the press to speak free of repercussions other than the attention or lack thereof attracted by their message. Government transparency is completely orthogonal issue, keeping secrets does in no way prevent the press from speaking.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 28 2017, @07:57PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 28 2017, @07:57PM (#501293)

    Forgive me for being dense, but this comes across to me as not much different from some things I was reading about the "weather war" last night. I love me a good conspiracy theory.

    Anyway, can you provide anything that would corroborate your claims in regards to the press deviating from their normal crime reporting and in regards to a police chief being under investigation solely because of a statement he made based on the fact that were available to him at the time?

    If I were prepared to reject your claims out of hand, I wouldn't have asked, since what you're saying is pretty boring compared to many of the really good conspiracy theories out there. At a minimum, we'd need to involve the anunnaki before it'd make a decently entertaining conspiracy theory.