Part II: The RSF Rankings In light of the casualness with which media organizations and "human rights" groups regularly cite the Press Freedom rankings of Reporters Without Borders (RSF), one might well expect RSF's Press Freedom Index to be accompanied by a detailed report explaining how the organization established its rankings and providing a summary analysis of the situation of press freedoms of each of the 169 countries included. This would surely not be too much to expect of an organization disposing of an annual budget of nearly four million euros: much of which, as shown in Part I of this exposé, derives from public French and EU sources. Anyone looking for such a report from RSF, however, will be disappointed. The RSF Press Freedom Index is merely accompanied by a seven-page press release. Four of the seven pages, however, are taken up by a reproduction in tabular form of the index itself. This leaves RSF's discursive presentation of its results topping out at all of two-and-a-half pages or some 1373 words (in the English version): less than half the length of the present article. A heading on the Web page for the RSF index promising "Evaluation by region" gives one hope for finding something more to chew on. The heading is followed by links for "Americas," "Asia," "Africa," "Europe" and "Middle East." Anyone clicking on those links, however, will discover that they lead to exactly the same 1373-word press release, with merely the subtitles changed! A more brazen expression of RSF's disinterest in providing a detailed justification for its rankings would hardly be possible.
The Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index: Independent Assessment or EU Propaganda? (Part II)
