Freedom of the Press 2009 FURTHER DECLINES IN GLOBAL MEDIA INDEPENDENCE Selected data from Freedom House’s annual survey of press freedom Acknowledgments Freedom of the Press 2009 could not have been completed without the contributions of numerous Freedom House staff and consultants. The following section, entitled “The Survey Team,” contains a detailed list of writers without whose efforts this project would not have been possible. Karin Deutsch Karlekar, a senior researcher at Freedom House, served as managing editor of this year’s survey. Extensive research, editorial, and administrative assistance was provided by Denelle Burns, as well as by Sarah Cook, Tyler Roylance, Elizabeth Floyd, Joanna Perry, Joshua Siegel, Charles Liebling, and Aidan Gould. Overall guidance for the project was provided by Arch Puddington, director of research, and by Christopher Walker, director of studies. We are grateful for the insights provided by those who served on this year’s review team, including Freedom House staff members Arch Puddington, Christopher Walker, Karin Deutsch Karlekar, Sarah Cook, and Tyler Roylance. In addition, the ratings and narratives were reviewed by a number of Freedom House staff based in our overseas offices. This report also reflects the findings of the Freedom House study Freedom in the World 2009: The Annual Survey of Political Rights and Civil Liberties. Statistics on internet usage were taken from www.internetworldstats.com. This project was made possible by the contributions of the Asia Vision Foundation, F. M. Kirby, Free Voice, Freedom Forum, The Hurford Foundation, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Lilly Endowment Inc., The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the National Endowment for Democracy, The Nicholas B. Ottaway Foundation, and the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy. The Survey Team Contributing Authors Mohammad Ali Al-Abdallah is a blogger and independent Syrian human rights activist. He has worked as a free lance journalist in several Arabic newspapers, covering political and human rights issues in the Middle East. He worked as a consultant for the Human Rights Watch Beirut office from July 2007 to January 2009, researching online freedom of expression and human rights violations in Syria and Lebanon. His blog was the first blog on Syria hosted by WordPress to be blocked in Syria. He received a LL.B from Lebanese university, Faculty of Law. He served as a Middle East analyst for Freedom of the Press. Amira Al Hussaini is a Bahraini journalist, translator, editor and blogger. She is Global Voices Online’s Middle East and North Africa editor. Amira, whose career in journalism spans 18 years, also serves at Global Voices Online’s board of directors. Having started as a trainee journalist in 1991, Amira worked her way up to become news editor of an English language daily in a few years. Today she is the managing editor of a monthly current affairs and business magazine. She served as a Middle East analyst for Freedom of the Press. Alexis Arieff is an analyst in African affairs at the Congressional Research Service. (Any views expressed herein are hers alone, and do not represent CRS or the Library of Congress.) She previously worked as a Senior Research Associate for the Africa program at the Committee to Protect Journalists and as a research intern at the International Crisis Group’s West Africa field office. She holds an M.A. in international relations from Yale University, with a focus on politics and security in sub-Saharan Africa. She also writes for Freedom House’s Freedom in the World survey. She served as an Africa analyst for Freedom of the Press. Charles Arthur is an analyst and journalist specializing in Caribbean politics and economics. He holds an MA in Latin American government and politics from the University of Essex, United Kingdom. He is a contributing writer for the Economist Intelligence Unit and the International Press Institute’s World Press Freedom Review, and is the author of two books about Haiti. He served as the Caribbean analyst for Freedom of the Press. Luis Botello is the senior program director for digital media at the International Center for Journalists. He focuses on journalism in Latin America, journalism ethics and best practice, freedom of expression and of the press, and civic journalism. He launched ICFJ’s International Journalism Network (IJNet) and has produced numerous journalism training tools. Before ICFJ, he served as morning newscast producer, host, and television reporter for Televisora Nacional in Panama, where he covered assignments in Colombia, the United States, and Europe. He is a board member of the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas at the University of Texas at Austin and the Latin American Journalism Center (CELAP) in Panama City, Panama. He was a Fulbright Scholar at Louisiana State University’s Manship School of Mass Communication, where he got his B.A. in Broadcast Journalism and M.A. in Mass Communications. He served as the Central America analyst for Freedom of the Press. 2 Julia Breslin is the Research and Editorial Associate for the Freedom House publication Women’s Rights in the Middle East and North Africa. She has written for various other publications, including the Max Planck Institute’s Encyclopedia of Public International Law. Her research focus is the Middle East, and she has carried out field research in Kuwait, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates. She holds a law degree from Florida State University and an LL.M. in international human rights law from Lund University, Sweden, a program taught in conjunction with the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law. She served as the Iran analyst for Freedom of the Press. Sarah G. Cook is an Asia Researcher at Freedom House and recently served as assistant editor for Freedom on the Net, a Freedom House pilot index of internet and digital media freedom. Prior to joining Freedom House, she coedited the English version of Chinese attorney Gao Zhisheng’s memoir, A China More Just. She holds an MSc in politics and an LLM in public international law from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, where she was a Marshall Scholar. She served as an Asia analyst for Freedom of the Press. Jake Dizard is the managing editor of Countries at the Crossroads, Freedom House’s annual survey of democratic governance. His area of focus is Latin America, with a specific emphasis on the Andean region. He is a 2005 graduate of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He served as an Americas analyst for Freedom of the Press. Camille Eiss is Director of Programs for the Truman National Security Project, where she develops curriculum and strategy across programs for Congressional staffers and Truman Project Security Fellows nationwide. Camille previously worked as a senior associate for the international development organization Endeavor and as a research analyst at Freedom House and Assistant Editor of Freedom in the World. Her research focused primarily on political and human rights developments in Southeast Asia. Camille was an editor of The Washington Quarterly at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and holds a BA in history and government from Georgetown University as well as an MA in the History of International Relations from the London School of Economics with a focus on Political Islam. She served as a Southeast Asia and Turkey analyst for Freedom of the Press. Leonardo Ferreira is an associate professor of the Electronic Media Program and researcher at the Knight Center for International Media, University of Miami. He is the author of Centuries of Silence: The Story of Latin American Journalism, published by Praeger/Greenwood Publishing in 2006 and has served as a consultant for the Inter American Press Association. His research focuses on media law, communication development, and indigenous press issues. He holds a Ph.D. from Michigan State University in Mass Media studies and a J.D. degree from the National University of Colombia. He served as an Americas analyst for Freedom of the Press. Elizabeth Floyd is editor of special reports at Freedom House. Her areas of interest include Europe, education, and cultural history. She has an MA in modern European history from Hunter College, CUNY, with a focus on German history; her BA is in history from California State University at Sacramento. She served as a Western Europe analyst for Freedom of the Press. 3 Thomas Gold is a former assistant professor of comparative politics at Sacred Heart University and author of The Lega Nord and Contemporary Politics in Italy. He earned his PhD from the New School for Social Research and received a Fulbright Fellowship to conduct research in Italy. He served as a Southern Europe analyst for Freedom of the Press. Heloiza Golbspan Herscovitz is an assistant professor in the department of journalism at California State University of Long Beach. Her research centers on newsroom culture, professional routines, news values, media roles, and online journalism. She is a veteran Brazilian journalist with extensive experience for several publications, including the daily O Estado de S. Paulo and Nova, Cosmopolitan’s Portuguese edition. Her prior teaching experience includes an appointment at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication of Florida International University, Miami, where she coordinated the Spanish-Language Master’s in Investigative Journalism between 2000 and 2003. She has also taught at two prestigious journalism programs in Brazil: PUC-RS of Porto Alegre, in the early 1990s, and UFSC of Florianopolis, from 2003 to 2006. She was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Florida, where she got a PhD in Mass Communications in 2000. She served as an Americas analyst for Freedom of the Press. Sallie Hughes is an associate professor in the Journalism and Latin American Studies department at the University of Miami.