Georgia Moves Up on Press Freedom List, But Remains ‘Partly Free’
Georgia’s ranking in an annual survey of global press freedom by Freedom House has improved slightly, but country still remains in the category of “partly free.”
Freedom of the Press 2014, which covers developments of 2013 and assesses press freedom in 197 countries and territories, ranks Georgia 93rd, sharing this position with Lesotho. In a previous similar survey Georgia was ranked 96th.
Each of the countries and territories examined in the survey are assigned a rating between 0 and 100 with countries scoring from 0 to 30 are given status of having “free” media; from 31 to 60 – “partly free” and 61 to 100 – “not free”.
Georgia’s score improved from 49 in the previous survey to 47 in the recent one.
Freedom House attributed “a smaller improvement” in Georgia’s standing to legislative amendments that “made permanent ‘must carry/must offer’ regulations requiring cable operators to carry all television stations, and the relative lack of incidents of intimidation or violence against journalists, which was notable for an election year.”