Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

The Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index ranks the performance of 180 countries according to a range of criteria that include media pluralism and independence, respect for the safety and freedom of journalists, and the legislative, institutional and infrastructural environment in which the media operate. The 2015 World Press Freedom Index highlights the worldwide deterioration in freedom of information in 2014. Beset by wars, the growing threat from non-state operatives, violence during demonstrations and the economic crisis, media freedom is in retreat on all five continents.The annual global indicator, which measures the overall level of violations of freedom of information in 180 countries year by year, has risen to 3,719, an 8 percent increase over 2014 and almost 10 percent compared with 2013. The decline affected all continents for the third year in a row. Read more here .  Let's see how the Eurovision countries feature. Finland keeps its global num...

Reporters without borders have published their annual Freedom of speech index in the world, read the whole list and info here . As a Finnish blogger I am happy to see Finland at the top for the third year in a row. All in all there are 9 Eurovision countries in the top-10, the one exception being New Zealand at #8 (and Liechtenstein at #7, but they have been flirting with Eurovision for so long that it almost counts like one of those countries that actually did take part in the past, Andorra, Monaco ...) as the Netherlands, Norway, Luxembourg, Andorra, Denmark, Iceland and Sweden complate the top. Very northern and Nordic isn't it? The Big5 are spread a bit on the top half of the list: Germany 17th, United Kingdom 29th, Spain 36th, France 37th and Italy 57th. Italy, Hungary and Greece get a special attention on the text. On the lower places, out of 179 countries are Russia 148th, Turkey 154th, Azerbaijan 156th and Belarus 157th. Is someone surprised? Even lowe...