Reporters Without Borders (RSF) recently issued the 21^st edition of the World Press Freedom Index in which it ranked 180 countries across the globe according to their press freedom levels. More particularly, countries were assigned scores ranging from 0 to 100, with 0 being the worst possible score and 100 the best. More specifically, scores were grouped as follows: [0 – 40[: “very serious”, [40 - 55[: “difficult”, [55 – 70[: “problematic”, [70 – 85[: “satisfactory”, and [85 – 100]: “good”. RSF revealed that it’s methodology for the index centers around five indicators, namely the “political context”, “legal framework”, “economic context”, “sociocultural context”, and “safety” indicators. In this vein, RSF indicated that 31 countries were categorized as having “very bad” press freedom in the 2023 index, 42 were characterized with “difficult” press freedom, 55 were classified as having “problematic” press freedom, 44 countries were grouped under a “satisfactory” press freedom, and 8 were classified as having “good” press freedom. Furthermore, RSF revealed that 49 individuals (47 journalists and 2 media workers) were killed in the year 2023, in comparison with 61 individuals a year earlier.

In detail, RSF unveiled that the Europe – Central Asia region continued to enjoy the freest media in the index notwithstanding the persistence of the Russian war on Ukraine, which weakened press freedom in Russia and Russian occupied territories in Ukraine. However, the gap between European countries narrowed as the number of countries that registered an improvement in 2023 doubled that of those who witnessed a deterioration. In details, RSF revealed that Norway topped the list of countries for yet another year with a score of 95.18, followed by Ireland (with a score of 89.91) which broke a four year tradition of a Nordic top 3, Denmark (with a score of 89.48), Sweden (with a score of 88.15), and Finland (with a score of 87.94). When it comes to the Americas (North, Central and South), the report pointed out that political transitions in Brazil and the United States of America have benefitted journalists in these two countries. The Asia-Pacific region, on the other hand, reported the worst freedom levels, with three of its countries (Vietnam, China and North Korea) occupying the bottom three positions on the list. The RSF commented that more than half of the countries in the Middle East region were classified under the “very serious” press freedom category as media in the region continues to be suppressed by authoritarian rulers or rebel militias.  Country-wise, Qatar ranked first in the region and 105^th in the world in the 2023 press freedom index with a score of 55.28, followed by Lebanon which scored 50.46 and occupied the 119^th place in the world, Tunisia (3^rd regionally and 121^st globally; score of 50.11) and Algeria (4^th regionally and 136^th globally; score of 45.74).

Locally, Lebanon registered a significant improvement over the 2022 press freedom level at a time when it registered a score of 46.58, ranking 130^th globally and 4^th regionally.

More specifically, Lebanon scored 51.63 in the political indicator (global rank: 108), 48.11 in the legal framework indicator (global rank: 130), 35.69 in the economic context indicator (global rank: 147), 58.96 in the socio-cultural indicator (global rank: 106), and 58.00 in the safety indicator (global rank: 108).