Brunei and Timor Leste have a much better global press freedom ranking than Malaysia. That says a lot about the Malaysian media.

Brunei, Timor Leste much better than RI Veeramalla Anjaiah, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | World | Mon, February 25 2013, 11:38 AM

Paper Edition | Page: 10 Is Brunei, a non-democratic country, much more open than worlds third largest democracy Indonesia in terms of press freedom? Yes it is, says Reporters Without Borders (RSF), a Paris-based non-government organization that promotes and defends freedom of information in its recently released World Press Freedom Index 2013.

The annual index measures the level of freedom of information in 179 countries in five continents. The survey covers six fields pluralism, media independence, environment, self-censorship, legislative framework transparency and infrastructure through a questionnaire sent to all five continents.

A quick look at the 2013 index reveals that none of the 10-ASEAN countries made into the top 100 countries out of 179 that were surveyed for this years index. Brunei ranked at 122 with a score of 35.45, a slight increase from 2012s 125th position on the same index. Finland, like last year, once again topped the index with a score of 6.38 followed by the Netherlands (6.48) and Norway (6.52) in second and third respectively.

With a score of 84.83, Eritrea retained its infamous crown as the country that least respects press freedom and sits at the bottom of the index in 179th place. North Korea, where press freedom is an alien concept, ended up at 178th with a score of 83.90.

Indonesia ranked only 139th position with score of 41.05, four positions behind Thailand, which had a score of 38.60. In fact, Indonesia did improve its ranking by seven positions from 146th position in 2012.

Indonesias former state Timor Leste earned the respectable rank of 90 with its score of 28.72. Indonesias neighbor Papua New Guinea fared much better at 41st position with a 22.97 score.

The question raised by these results is why democratic countries like Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines lag behind Brunei, a country without an elected parliament? An RSF executive gives some insight;

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Press freedom : Malaysia lags behind Brunei, Timor Leste