World Media Freedom Day 2017

According to a study, published by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), one way is to look at that country's public service media and ask whether the sector is well-funded and broadly speaking, strong.  However, the Council of Europe's Commissioner for Human Rights, Nils Muižnieks, says that some leaders are trying to take advantage: "One problem that I have encountered in a number of my country visits relates to government efforts to influence the independence and pluralism of public service broadcasting."  He goes on to say that money is an important factor in media: "The system of financing public broadcasters is also of utmost importance since it has the potential of keeping them politically dependent."

According to Nils Muižnieks, an area of serious concern for media freedom this year remains: "... governments’ attempts to turn public broadcasting into government broadcasting."