By Chuck Warren
A graphic is going viral on social media, with prominent Europeans boasting that fundamental freedoms are more protected in Europe than in the United States. Like most things, if it sounds too absurd, it’s because it’s too absurd. Let’s review the methodology of this index, talk about the group’s funding, and compare the facts.
This is a ranking by Reporters Without Borders, an NGO in Paris, France. Its primary donors include the European Union, UNESCO (part of the U.N.), George Soros’s Open Society Foundation, America-bashing Ford Foundation, and the governments of Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom. It is not surprising that the people who pay the bills get good marks.
The ranking places the United States in 57th position, ranking it below Liberia, Suriname, and Tonga. Out of 100, first-place Norway gets a 92 score, and the United States gets 65. Algeria, which just sentenced a French journalist to years in prison over an interview, gets 45. But these numbers mean that the state of the press in America is closer to Algeria than Norway.
There is a methodology behind this, and let’s take a look.
Some of the questions are perfectly valid, such as those related to political and judicial pressure on journalists.
Some are silly, like who owns media outlets, and whether they use them to advance their business interests. This is a difficult one. On the one hand, dishonest journalists are a problem, but on the other hand, money is always going to buy influence. That is not related to press freedom.
And some are bonkers, like if the people like journalists on the internet!
Now, let’s dive in to see why America ranks so low.
You probably have already guessed that we automatically get points deducted for electing Donald Trump:
In the United States (57), Donald Trump’s second term as president has led to an alarming deterioration in press freedom, indicative of an authoritarian shift in government. His administration has weaponized institutions, cut support for independent media, and sidelined reporters. With trust in the media plummeting, reporters face increasing hostility. At the same time, local news outlets are disappearing, turning vast swaths of the country into “news deserts.” Trump also terminated federal funding for the US Agency for Global Media, which distributes resources to vital international media organizations, affecting audiences and outlets worldwide.
So, first of all, it’s ‘weaponized’ and ‘organizations,’ with “z!” Second, cutting funding for the U.S. Agency for Global Media might not be the best policy for our foreign interests, but the agency’s subsidiary media were never supposed to be independent, and they are not broadcast to the American people. These are government media that are supposed to tell people in enemy countries why America is good, and their governments are bad. Basically, they are what TikTok is for China. When these experts say independent media, they seem not to know what the word independent means: It means you are not dependent on the government. Cutting their funding makes them independent, whereas they used to be dependent on the U.S. government before.
Moving past teaching these people English, some of the examples they use are valid superficially, and some are plain stupid.
For instance, they cite that Trump has banned the Associated Press from the White House. On the one hand, you cannot allow in every single news outlet because there is just not enough room. On the other, doing so over whether it is the Gulf of America or the Gulf of Mexico is silly.
But digging a bit deeper, this is over a policy difference between the administration and the Associated Press, but European governments have policy differences with right-wing newspapers, which they would not admit to the press pool, calling them, rightly or wrongly, fascist. Do they get points deducted? Of course not.
The report also notes that no press protection law has been passed recently in the United States. Which is true. I think that the last major law we passed to protect the press was in 1791 more than two centuries ago. It’s called the First Amendment. There has not been a need since then because we gave the press absolute freedom. It’s like complaining that there is no device to generate oxygen when there is free oxygen in the air already.
And then there is the bonkers town problem: “According to recent studies, more Americans have no trust in the media than trust it a fair amount. Online harassment, particularly towards women and minorities, is also a serious issue for journalists and can impact their quality of life and safety.”
Two things here. First, a lack of trust in the media does not make the press less free. They still get to publish whatever they want, which is the definition of freedom. And the fact that they keep publishing the garbage that they do with impunity is why nobody likes them.
Grow up! There are journalists out there embedding with the Ukrainian military in a war zone, and these losers are complaining about mean Tweets.
The report also mentions 49 journalists arrested in the U.S. last year. Here’s the thing: If a journalist were ever arrested for doing his or her job in America, I can guarantee you that we would never hear the end of it, and that journalist would receive about a million awards. So how did 49 arrests go unnoticed?
Because they were all reporting on riots and illegal sit-ins, the police confused them with the protesters who were engaged in illegal activities and detained them. As soon as the cops realized they were journalists, they were all let go. But when you say, “arresting a journalist,” your mind immediately goes to a country like Russia or Iran—or the U.K.
The fact is that America remains the freest country in the world. Journalists still get to write whatever they want, mostly trash, but saying that deducts you points!
Americans also get to say whatever they want. These Europeans on Twitter are saying how there is more freedom of speech there than in the U.S.
A former soccer player (sorry, President Trump, it is soccer, not football), Joey Barton, just received a six-month suspended jail sentence for Tweeting a joke.
Officials from the European Union told 60 Minutes that online insults could result in a fine and jail time for repeat offenders.
In 2020, nine teenagers’ gang-raped a 15-year-old girl in Germany. A 20-year-old woman called one of the guys, a 15-year-old, a “disgraceful racist pig” and “disgusting freak.” Last year, the rapist did not get any jail time for being a minor. The young woman was sentenced to a weekend in jail for “a verbal attack.”
There are too many examples to list. But if any of this ever happened in America, we would have a second revolution.
I like Europe and wish Europeans the best. This includes wishing them to be free again. I would even wish them to become freer than we are, but that’s not possible!
Note: the opinions expressed herein are those of Chuck Warren only and not his co-host Sam Stone or Breaking Battlegrounds’ staff.
