Reporters Without Borders: World Press Freedom Index 2014 Interestingly, I am seeing this plastered all over right wing media, even though Bush is damned as much as Obama, and I'm not seeing it at all on left wing media. It seems for both it's more important to pick a side than to face the truth.
Neither is the Daily Kos, apparently: U.S. Falls to 46th in World Press Freedom Due to War on Whistleblowers
The most detailed analysis of the new World Press Freedom Index rankings that I've seen is in the Washington Post (which is commonly regarded as left-leaning). The Post points out that the US has fluctuated regularly in the WPFI rankings since they were instituted in 2002; the lowest rankings were actually in 2006 and 2007 (during the second term of the GW Bush administration). One reason for the fluctuations is simply that the US is in a large cluster of countries with very similar scores -- so even a slight movement of the score in an upward or downward direction causes the US to gain or lose many places in the world ranking. The Post concludes:
Anyone have concerns with the sample size of 150 for 7.046 billion (conf. 95, int. 8, or 99 & 10.53) in 180 countries, the methodology or the questionnaire in this study?
