Swiss press freedom worsens despite climb in rankings

Switzerland moved up in this year's rankings. Keystone/Gaetan Bally

According to the organisation Reporters Without Borders, Switzerland is now one of the ten countries that best protect freedom of the press worldwide. It now occupies 9th place in this ranking, up from 12th place last year.  

 However, according to a press release from Reporters Without Borders (RSF) Switzerland, press freedom in Switzerland has actually deteriorated rather than improved. Switzerland achieved 84.01 points in the 2024 rating, which is based on the evaluation of five indicators, compared to 84.4 in the previous year.  

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 Switzerland’s advance was therefore due to the deterioration of three countries that were ahead in the previous year. These are Lithuania, East Timor and Liechtenstein (now ranked 15th instead of 11th).  

According to RSF Switzerland, the development of press freedom in Switzerland last year was positive in terms of the “security” indicator. In previous years, verbal or physical attacks on media professionals had cost Switzerland points. According to RSF, these attacks occurred in particular at demonstrations organised by opponents of the coronavirus measures.  

Right to information ‘circumvented’

In the area of “Legal framework”, on the other hand, Switzerland only ranks 27th internationally. RSF Switzerland justifies this relatively poor ranking with the statement that the problem of applying the criminal provisions of the Federal Banking Act to media professionals has still not been resolved.  

In Switzerland, the principle of public access, which stipulates the right of private individuals to access documents held by the administration, “continues to be the subject of various circumvention strategies”.  

In addition to the security and legal framework indicators, Reporters Without Borders also compiles its annual press freedom rating based on the areas of “political context”, “economic context” and “socio-cultural context”.  

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According to RSF International, Norway has the best press freedom situation in the world. The Nordic country was able to maintain its top position from the previous year. Denmark now ranks second instead of third, while Ireland dropped from second to eighth place.  

RSF attributes this to Irish politicians who had the media intimidated by the courts. According to RSF International, conditions for media professionals are only satisfactory in a quarter of all countries.  

Worldwide, freedom of the press is threatened by those who should actually be its guarantors: political authorities. This is shown by the fact that the global average score for the “political context” indicator has fallen by 7.6 points.

Adapted from German by DeepL/kc 

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