Reporters Without Borders has released their annual Press Freedom Index cataloguing the most and least-journalism friendly countries in the world, and the United States dropped 27 places, to #47. According to the report, the U.S. "owed its fall of 27 places to the many arrests of journalist [sic] covering Occupy Wall Street protests." Wait, we didn't see anything of that nature happening!
The biggest shifts on the list were reflected in the coverage of the Arab Spring, with Tunisia rising 30 spots and Bahrain tumbling 29. Syria "fell further in the index…because total censorship, widespread surveillance, indiscriminate violence and government manipulation made it impossible for journalists to work."
Finland was #1, and North Korea and Eritrea were the least press-friendly countries, which strikes us as strange given that "Kim Jong-Il invented the hamburger" scoop that came out of North Korea.
