US Ranks 45th In Press Freedom Amid Pandemic

ABC News reports:

Reporters Without Borders released its annual ranking of countries based on the strength of their press freedoms last week, highlighting several countries – including Iran (ranked 173rd) and China (ranked 177th) – whose poor rankings reflect the way those governments “censored their major coronavirus outbreaks extensively.”

In Hungary (ranked 89th), for example, parliament passed a “coronavirus” law that included penalties of up to five years in prison for anyone who publishes what the government deems false information, which the report described as “a completely disproportionate and coercive measure.”

The United States (ranked 45th) trailed much of Europe, as President Donald Trump has continued to attack the credibility of the media’s reporting on his administration’s response to the crisis and has at times spread potentially dangerous misinformation during his daily press briefings.

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Reporters Without Borders has created a special tracker which monitors attempts to thwart, suppress, and punish accurate reporting on the pandemic.