Only 17 percent of the world?s population (roughly 1.1 billion people) live in countries that enjoy freedom of the press, according to the 2009 Freedom of the Press survey from Freedom House.
CNSNews has a good summary of the report:
Many of the countries that have held consistently ?worse? scores in the study and over the last several years include Iran, Cuba, Russia and Venezuela ? all countries with which President Barack Obama has sought to improve country-to-country relations.
But democracies such as Mexico, Italy, and Israel were also cited in the report for restrictions on the press, as each country is ranked as having a ?partially-free? press.
The study concluded that the ?worst of the worst? countries were Burma, Cuba, Eritrea, Libya, North Korea and Turkmenistan.
According to the report, there are 70 countries with a ?free? press, about 36 percent; 61 countries (or 31 percent) were ranked ?partly free;? and 64 countries, 33 percent, were ?not free.?
Jon Ham offers some thoughts on a threat to media freedom in the United States here.
