Reporters Without Borders (RSF) compiled the 2020 Global Press Freedom Index, according to which the coming decade will be crucial for the future of journalism. This was reported on the organization’s website.

The reason for this will be the Covid-19 pandemic, which will emphasize and strengthen many crises that threaten the right to communicate freely and receive independent and reliable information.

The index suggests that the next 10 years will be crucial for freedom of the press due to converging crises affecting the future of journalism: a geopolitical crisis (due to the aggressiveness of authoritarian regimes); technological crisis (due to lack of democratic guarantees); democratic crisis (due to polarization and repressive policies); confidence crisis (due to suspicion and even hatred of the media); and the economic crisis (impoverishment of quality journalism).

Norway leads the index for the fourth year in a row, followed by Finland and Denmark. Sweden (in 4th place) and the Netherlands (in 5th place) fell in the ranking due to the growth of cyber harassment. At the end of the rating, small changes also occurred: North Korea (at 180th place) took the last position in the list previously held by Turkmenistan, and Eritrea (178th place) continues to be the country with the worst rating in Africa.

The rating of Ukraine has improved: the country for the first time entered the Top 100 and took 96th place (compared with 102 in 2019). This was explained not with improvements in the country, but rather by the worsened situation in the countries which ranked above it. Bulgaria which is a member of the European Union, however, kept its 111th place, the last not only in EU but in Europe as a whole.

Serbia fell three places in the ranking to the 93rd position. Montenegro was ranked 105th; Bosnia improved with five places to 58, beating Croatia which was 59th. Kosovo improved from 75 to 70, while Albania dropped to place to the 84th position. North Macedonia improved with three positions to Number 92. Slovenia was the best ranked in the former Yugoslavia region at the 32nd position. Romania lost one place to 47th.

Russia and Turkey had the worst ranking in CEE at the 149th and 154th positions. Estonia was best at 14th, followed by Latvia – 22 and Lithuania – 28.