Comment by sltkr
5 days ago
You never said it explicitly but you are referencing the French Reporters sans frontières (RSF) ranking, which is a European organization which is obviously predisposed to rank European countries highly.
I find their ranking highly suspect because they put the Netherlands at number #4, one of the highest rankings, while in reality the press in the Netherlands is in a dire state: literally all newspapers of record are collectively owned by just two Belgian (not even Dutch) mega-corporations. Is this really one of the most free countries? It's like Rupert Murdoch and Michael Bloomberg together owned all newspapers in the US.
And the US is ranked suspiciously low, at #55, below a country like Belize. Belize! Look at what RSF itself writes about Belize:
> With no daily newspapers, the pool of media outlets is small, and of those considered mainstream, some are supportive of political parties, even when privately owned. Independent media are scarce and access to funding is limited. Most of the advertising funds that media publishers rely on come from the government and their distribution are often dependent on the party in power.
Am I supposed to take it seriously that this is better than the US? That Belizeans have access to a more free press than Americans do? It seems more plausible the ranking is bogus.
You picked the wrong country. I'm from the Netherlands and it's not in a dire state.
It has newspapers across the spectrum. Volkskrant and Parool are left-wing, AD is centrist, Telegraaf is center-right. To name a few. This reflects our political system which is a distribution rather than a binary system.
In addition, there's state-owned news that reports very factually, with little to no bias in any direction.
We also have excellent deep journalism, my favorite being Follow The Money: https://www.ftm.nl/
EU edition: https://www.ftm.eu/articles
...the type of journalism the entire world needs.
The Netherlands has no hard-right or alt-right newspapers or TV channels. Not because it's not allowed, we just don't have the equivalent of Fox.
In my view, this is a blessing. It's not because I'm left wing. I'm center-right. Alt-right with their misinformation and alternative facts are an attack on information itself. It's not just "another view", it undermines reality itself.
And for the record, we have no hard-left in mainstream media either. Not because it's not allowed, it just doesn't work over here.