Reporters Without Borders has released its annual Worldwide Press Freedom Index. North European countries remain top of the list, the US has fallen and Australia sits 35th in the world (principally because of anti-terror laws that may affect journalists).
The Washington Post story is here.
The issue of media ownership is central to understanding the power structures in play. The Benton Foundation and the Social Science Research Council have released studies that analyse the effect of increased concentration in the US. The result?
These studies make clear that media consolidation does not correlate with better, more local or more diverse media content. To the contrary, they strongly suggest that media ownership rules should be tightened not relaxed.…
Similar results would be found in Australia.