The Freedom of the Press Index by Freedom House

The Freedom of the Press Index is conducted by Freedom House, a U.S.-based watchdog organization dedicated to the promotion of freedom and democratic principles around the world. It was founded in 1941 by prominent American business and labor leaders, journalists, academics, and former government officials.

Freedom House receives funding from the U.S. government for some of its projects, for example via the U.S. Agency for International Development and the U.S. Department of State. However, the Freedom of the Press report is funded by private foundations and other nongovernmental donors.

What is Freedom House's approach?
The index is based on a scale from 0 to 100. The higher the score, the worse the situation regarding media freedom. Freedom House uses the categories of "Free" (overall country score between 0 and 30), "Partly Free" (31-60) and "Not Free" (61 to 100).

In order to measure the status of media freedom in each country, Freedom House uses 23 methodology questions, each of which has several subquestions. Different amounts of points are assigned to each question.

The methodology questions are divided into three broad categories: Political Environment (up to 40 points), Legal Environment (up to 30 points), and Economic Environment (up to 30 points).

How is the Freedom of the Press Index compiled?
For each country, an analyst prepares the draft rating and country report. According to Freedom House about one fifth of the analysts are staff researchers, and the rest are external consultants, typically academics, NGO workers and journalists. Roughly half of all analysts live in the country or region that they are rating, while the other half is based outside the countries.

The analysts' ratings are reviewed individually and on a comparative basis in regional meetings involving the analysts, Freedom House staff and external advisers, who are experts in the particular region.

The final country score is determined after a cross-regional review, which aims to ensure comparability and consistency in the findings.

For more information, see Freedom House's web page. For a more detailed analysis of the index, its methodology, its strengths and weaknesses, and how it compares with other indices, see DW Akademie guidebook "Media Freedom Indices - What they tell us and what they don't". More links are provided in the Media Freedom Navigator resources section.