Reporters Without Borders (RFS) have today released a report on the levels of media freedom in 167 countries. Not surprisingly Australia ranked a mere 41st position with 8 “Scandinavian Liberal Paradises” all sharing equal first: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Netherlands, Norway, Slovakia and Switzerland. America ranked a reasonably respectable 22nd.

With these sorts of surveys one always tries to explain certain correlations and two key points stand out to me here. Firstly, the countries that share first position all have a strong welfare system, good education systems and very ‘liberal’ attitudes to a wide range of issues – particularly the Environment. Surely the two are related – a well informed population can see the connections and enjoy a long term view as opposed to the short term and uninformed opinions that seem to dominate politics in Australia. I don’t think this is a coincidence.

The second key point I can make of this survey is that America ranked considerably better than Australia. I’m not sure about the method of measurement used by RFS but having recently seen Outfoxed this could come as a surprise considering Mr Murdoch’s extremely partisan view that permeates his news outlets and the dominance of these outlets. However this Documentary also showed the other side of that coin – a side largely missing from the Australian picture. Throughout Outfoxed a wide range of activists were interviewed, all carefully analysing the Fox News Network, and providing intelligent and insightful criticisms. So despite this apparent lack of diversity there is a strong counter movement that is providing genuine resistance. This is missing in Australia and could go someway toward explaining this disparity.