(TibetanReview.net, May02’26) –Press freedom has fallen to its lowest level in a quarter of a century and China as the world’s biggest jailer of journalists remains among the top violators in this unfortunate saga, according to Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) in its latest annual survey released on Apr 30.
“For the first time in the RSF’s 25-year history of Global Press Freedom Index, more than half the world’s countries now fall into the ‘difficult’ or ‘very serious’ categories for press freedom,” said the RSF in its statement while releasing the 2026 survey.
“The average score for all countries and territories worldwide has never been so low,” it said.
Also, the share of the world’s population living in a country where the situation concerning press freedom is considered “good” has plunged from 20% to less than 1%.
“For the first time in the RSF Index’s 25-year history, more than half the world’s countries now fall into the ‘difficult’ or ‘very serious’ categories for press freedom,” the statement said.
China ranks 178th, placing it third from the bottom, out of 180 countries surveyed. It is ahead of only North Korea (179th) and Eritrea (180th), but two notches lower than its last year’s ranking at 176th.
The fact that China ranks 179th in the political indicator (8.86) and legal indicator (11.03), 177th in the social indicator (15.25), and 173rd in the economic indicator (21.66), is seen as pointing to its systemic constraints on journalism across governance, legal frameworks, societal conditions, and media sustainability.
China is the world’s largest prison for journalists, and its regime conducts a campaign of repression against journalism and the right to information worldwide, the survey says, noting that the country currently has 110 journalists and three media workers in detention. The Chinese regime uses surveillance, coercion, intimidation and harassment to keep independent journalists from reporting on issues it deems “sensitive”, the report added.