Stories about press freedom in seven countries

 

62 students rounded off their first year at OsloMet’s journalism studies with an intense two week long workshop on press freedom. 

Since 2002 Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has published an annual ranking of press freedom in 180 countries. This year’s index shows that hate and violence against journalists have increased. 

– If the political debate slides surreptitiously or openly towards a civil war-style atmosphere, in which journalists are treated as scapegoats, then democracy is in great danger, RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire said to the organisation’s own website. 

For two weeks, journalism students at OsloMet tried to grasp the importance of press freedom by researching, investigating, and writing online multimedia stories about today’s media landscape and the state of press freedom in seven different countries. 

Norway was ranked first in the RSF Index for the third time in a row, while the countries chosen for this year’s Rig were given the following rankings: Great Britain (33^rd), Hungary (87^th), Lebanon (101^st), Brazil (105^th), Afghanistan (121^st), Colombia (129^th), Somalia (164^th). 

A total of 60 stories were written and published in Norwegian, and you can read all the stories, including mini radio documentaries and video interviews, the students made at Journalen.

Shortcuts to the stories on each of the seven countries:

• Afghanistan
• Brazil
• Colombia
• Great Britain
• Hungary
• Lebanon
• Somalia

The Rig has been a part of the first year at the journalism studies at OsloMet for more than ten years. The project-based way of learning about such a central topic as press freedom has gained a lot of interest from foreign study programmes in journalism, and over the years the Rig has been successfully exported to Cannes in France, Nablus in Palestine and Kampala in Uganda.

 

 

 

• Category: Press freedom