At least the birthplace of the First Amendment managed to come in one spot ahead of Haiti.
Every year, Reporters Without Borders ranks 180 countries in order of how well they safeguard press freedom. This year, the United States suffered a precipitous drop.
The latest Press Freedom Index ranked the U.S. 46th.
That puts us around the same place as UC Santa Barbara in the U.S. News and World Report college rankings. If we were on the PGA tour we’d be Jonas Blixt of Sweden.
If we were on American Idol we’d have been sent home already.
Countries that scored better include Romania, South Africa, Ghana, Cyprus, and Botswana. And 40 others. Put simply, it’s an embarrassing result for the country that conceived the First Amendment almost 240 years ago. These rankings are always a bit arbitrary, but we’re not anywhere close to the top tier these days. Why?
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