U.S. declines again in press freedom index

For the third time in three years, the United States’ standing in an annual index of press freedom declined, a result the report’s authors attributed to President Donald Trump’s anti-press rhetoric and continuing threats to journalists.

Reporters Without Borders, the international group that compiles the World Press Freedom Index, ranked the United States 48th among 180 nations and territories it surveyed. The U. S. ranking fell three spots from 2018, continuing a downward trend that began in 2016. The United States finished just above Senegal and just below Romania on this year’s list.

It also fell into the ranks of countries whose treatment of journalists is considered “problematic,” the first time the United States has been so classified since the organization began the index in 2002.

The top ranks were dominated once again by European countries: Norway ranked first for the third time in a row, followed by Finland, Sweden, Netherlands and Denmark. The bottom of the list included, in descending order, Vietnam, China, Eritrea, North Korea and Turkmenistan.

The group cited both Trump’s rhetorical hostility toward the American news media and a possibly related phenomenon — increasing threats of harm against reporters — for the nation’s declining status.

Among other signs of poor press health, it cited the Trump administration’s curtailment of White House briefings; the revocation of CNN reporter Jim Acosta’s White House press pass; the banning of a second CNN reporter, Kaitlan Collins, from an open- media event; and the harassment of journalists at Trump’s re- election rallies. Beyond this, there were bomb threats made to newsrooms; and an alleged murder plot aimed at prominent media figures and Democratic politicians by a Coast Guard lieutenant.

It noted that “hatred of the media” reached the point where a gunman killed four journalists and another employee at the Capital Gazette newspaper in Annapolis last June.

“Amid one of the American journalism community’s darkest moments, President Trump continued to spout his anti-press rhetoric, disparaging and attacking the media at a national level,” it said.