Malta retains ‘free press’ and edges up Freedom House ranking

Malta has gained one point in Freedom House’s press freedom index for 2013, released yesterday.

At 23 points, Malta’s freedom index was at its second highest level since the 27 points registered back in 1993. The country was placed in joint 36th position, with Slovakia and the United Kingdom.

The Freedom of the Press report measures the level of media independence in 197 countries and territories. Each country receives a numerical score from 0 (the most free) to 100 (the least free) on the basis of combined scores from three subcategories: the legal environment, the political environment, and the economic environment.

Malta registered five points in the legal environment index, and nine points each in the political and economic indexes.

For each category, a lower number of points is allotted for a more free situation, while a higher number of points is allotted for a less free environment.

There was no commentary available on the components of Malta’s score, although recent legislative efforts saw the introduction of a Freedom of Information Act and the Whistleblower Protection Act. Malta however still has criminal libel laws and no debate yet on how to overhaul defamation laws that punish people for blasphemy and offending the Head of State.

In 2013, MaltaToday was instrumental in bringing to light the Enemalta oil scandal, which prompted criminal charges against former Enemalta officials and entrepreneurs that is till ongoing inside the courts, and Public Accounts Committee hearings on fuel procurement.

Snowden effect on press freedom

At a similar ranking as Malta was the UK, but for different reasons: registering both positive and negative trends, it saw a net decline from 21 to 23 points. A long-awaited reform of the libel laws raised the threshold for initiating cases, to curb “libel tourism.”

However, a number of negative developments stemmed from the government’s response to the revelations of surveillance by the NSA and its British counterpart, Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). Authorities used the Terrorism Act to detain the partner of investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald, who broke the story; raided the offices of the Guardian newspaper and destroyed hard drives containing potentially sensitive source materials; and subsequently threatened the Guardian with further action.

The United States remains one of the stronger performers in the index, but it suffered a significant negative shift for 2013, from 18 to 21 points, due to several factors.

Again, the practices disclosed by Edward Snowden, a former NSA contractor, regarding mass surveillance and the storage of metadata and digital content by the NSA, coupled with the targeted surveillance of the phones of dozens of Associated Press journalists, raised questions regarding the ability of journalists to protect their sources and cast a pall over free speech protections in the United States.

Global freedom down

Global press freedom fell to its lowest level in over a decade in 2013, as hopes raised by the Arab Spring were further dashed by major regression in Egypt, Libya, and Jordan, and marked setbacks also occurred in Turkey, Ukraine, and a number of countries in East Africa. In another key development, media freedom in the United States deteriorated due primarily to attempts by the government to inhibit reporting on national security issues.

Meanwhile, as a result of declines in democratic settings over the past several years, the share of the world’s population that enjoys a Free press remained at 14 percent, meaning only one in seven people live in countries where coverage of political news is robust, the safety of journalists is guaranteed, state intrusion in media affairs is minimal, and the press is not subject to onerous legal or economic pressures.

Separately, influential authoritarian powers such as China and Russia continued to maintain a tight grip on locally based print and broadcast media, while also attempting to control the more independent views provided either in the blogosphere or by foreign news sources.

Both countries introduced additional legal measures to penalize online speech in 2013. And while China focused on suppressing dissent on popular microblogging services and obstructing the foreign press, the Russian government closed RIA Novosti, a long-established news service, replacing it with an organization more openly under direct Kremlin control.