Freedom House is an independent organization that watches over press freedom worldwide, among other goals. It has an extensive history of supporting democratic change and expansion of freedom as well as monitoring and advocating for democracy and human rights. The organization was founded in 1941 by Americans who saw a world being torn apart by dictatorships and fear-based governments. Freedom House’s key values are based on democratic values while they vigorously oppose dictatorships of both the politically far right, fascist, and far left, communist. First lady Eleanor Roosevelt served as one of Freedom House’s first honorary co-chairpersons.
There have been many threats to press freedom in the last 30 years. Freedom House data concluded that press freedom is at an all time low, with only approximately 17 percent of the world's people living in countries that enjoy freedom of the press. The Freedom of the Press Survey was adopted 30 years ago to curb this trend.
But, since then the Gazeta Wyborcza (The Election Gazette), one of Poland’s most influential newspapers declared “there is no freedom without solidarity,” in 1989. The USSR fell in 1991, which promised a great deal of freedom except freedom of the press. The murder of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya followed 15 years later in 2006. China has endured consistent news blockades and other insidious human rights violations.
The Freedom of the Press Survey will publish its latest findings on April 29. Since its inception in 1980, it has been the most comprehensive data set available globally and is consistently used by scholars, policymakers, and institutions worldwide as a primary resource. The 1980s brought hope. Latin America was finally opened up to more freedoms and the USSR was losing the Cold War. This hope continued in the 1990s. However, recent years have been less promising and freedom of the press is losing ground even in open countries like Italy.
"Perhaps no single freedom has proven more valuable in safeguarding human rights and democracy than press freedom. It’s incumbent on all of us to reflect on the changes in press freedom, positive and negative, over the last 30 years and understand the events that have prompted these changes if we are to reclaim the upper hand in promoting freedom of expression," said Karin Karlekar, managing editor of Freedom of the Press, in press release.
