Reporters Without Borders warn of “an era of propaganda”

The image shows the global evaluation of press freedom by Reporters without Borders.

“Media freedom has declined steadily in the post-Soviet region” amidst a “new era of propaganda”, warn Reporters Without Borders (RSF) in their annual World Press Freedom Index, released on 20 April.

Worst performance to date
While attacks on journalistic freedom intensified in many authoritarian regimes, Russia’s score in 2016 reached its worst performance to date, putting it on place 148 out of the 180 countries evaluated.

According to RSF’s analysis, the survival of independent news coverage in under threat from ideologies hostile to media freedom.

RSF says: “It is unfortunately clear that many of the world’s leaders are developing a form of paranoia about legitimate journalism.”

Increase in propagandistic content
In addition, Reporters Without Borders highlight that “throughout the world, ‘oligarchs’ are buying up media outlets and are exercising pressure that compounds the pressure already coming from governments.”

Prominent democracy advocacy group Freedom House has also drawn attention to the information war the Kremlin has been conducting since 2014: “Russia’s occupation of the Crimean Peninsula and involvement in the conflict in eastern Ukraine helped to drive an increase in propagandistic content in the Russian news media and tighter restrictions on dissenting views,” it said in its 2015 report.