According to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), press freedom is under threat. The global state of press freedom has dropped to a new low in 2025, as shown in the latest World Press Freedom Index published by the organization.
In half of the 180 countries surveyed, the situation for media professionals is considered “difficult” or “very serious.” Beyond fragile security conditions and rising authoritarianism, economic pressure is increasingly straining the media landscape worldwide.
Only seven European countries earned a “good” rating. As in previous years, Norway tops the list, followed by Estonia, the Netherlands, and Sweden, according to Deutsche Welle.
Among non-European countries, New Zealand ranks 16th and Trinidad and Tobago 19th. Eritrea, a country in northeastern Africa, remains at the bottom in 180th place, followed by North Korea, China, and Syria. Since 2002, Reporters Without Borders has regularly assessed press freedom across five categories: political context, legal framework, economic constraints, sociocultural environment, and safety.
Germany’s ranking dropped slightly from 10th to 11th compared to last year. However, RSF notes that this is due to improvements in other countries, not a worsening situation in Germany. Still, RSF warns of visible challenges there too, including an increasingly hostile work environment for media professionals, particularly due to attacks from far-right extremist circles.
The climate is also becoming more tense within newsrooms, according to journalists’ associations. “Numerous cases have been documented in which media professionals reported disproportionately high obstacles to reporting on the Middle East conflict.” The economic situation for media companies in Germany has also deteriorated significantly.
While some EU countries face specific crises, the gap between Europe and the rest of the world is widening. According to RSF, Europe remains the region where journalists can report most freely. In contrast, pressure on the media continues to grow across the Americas. In the U.S., RSF observes an increasingly hostile climate toward the press – a trend that is affecting not only the country itself but also others, through a decline in financial support.
In terms of safety, the Middle East and North Africa remain the most dangerous regions. This is largely due to the high number of journalist deaths resulting from Israeli military strikes in the Palestinian Gaza Strip. Both Israel and the Palestinian territories have dropped in the rankings.
