A more unsettling trend, because it challenges comfortable assumptions about the relationship between democratic governance and press freedom, is the deterioration in countries that once prided themselves on their openness. The United States fell seven places to 64th in the 2026 RSF index. RSF attributes this decline to what it characterises as the current administration’s transformation of hostility toward the press into systematic policy. The report cites the detention and subsequent deportation of a Salvadoran journalist while he was documenting a protest against immigration raids, alongside sweeping budgetary cuts to the US Agency for Global Media, which funds international broadcasting services. Several prominent public media institutions have had their operations disrupted or suspended.

The Americas more broadly are suffering. Argentina has fallen 11 places to 98th under a government whose contempt for established media has been an explicit part of its political identity. El Salvador, ranked 143rd, has enacted a foreign agents law whose sweep is broad enough to endanger independent journalism outright, forcing reporters into exile. Ecuador dropped 31 places in a single year following the murders of journalists Darwin Baque and Patricio Aguilar in 2025. Peru fell 14 places after four journalists were killed the same year. Latin America, once an uneasy but functioning terrain for a free press, is being carved up by the twin pressures of organised crime and autocratic populism.

In Asia, the picture is equally grim. China, ranked 178th, holds the largest number of detained journalists of any country in the world: 121 media professionals are currently behind bars. The Philippines has made terrorism charges stemming from accusations of subversion a preferred instrument of press suppression. Frenchie Mae Cumpio, a journalist who has been held for six years on such charges, has become a symbol of that particular form of official cruelty.

Even within Europe, cracks are visible. Greece, the lowest-ranked European Union member state at 86th, has been described by RSF as mired in a systemic crisis since 2021. A wiretapping scandal involving the national intelligence service and the unsolved murder of journalist Giorgos Karaivaz cast a long shadow. Strategic lawsuits against public participation, known as SLAPPs, are used routinely to deter reporting on sensitive matters. Germany, despite its reputation, has national security laws that RSF says fail to meet the requirements of the European Media Freedom Act, which came into force in August 2025.