Shrinking Freedom

The International Press Institute (IPI), the 23-year-old organization founded in Switzerland to protect beleaguered newsmen round the world, has issued its gloomiest annual report. IPI finds the world press in 1974 "under open attack on all fronts."

Here is IPI'S scorecard: In South America, Uruguay, Peru, Brazil all have a muzzled press; Bolivia and Argentina are heading that way; and Chile's newspapers have dwindled from eleven in the days of Allende to five today.

In Africa, the government-controlled press dominates the Ghana scene, but Nigeria has "the freest press in black Africa"; Egypt, where the picture is brighter, has lifted every restriction but military censorship.

In Asia, Indonesia, South Korea and the Philippines all get poor marks. In Europe, IPI applauds the arrival of press liberty in Turkey, Greece and Portugal, sees some liberalization in Yugoslavia, but no change in Spain. As for the Soviet bloc countries, IPI simply says freedom of the press does not exist there.

The world's standout performance, according to IPI, was the role played by the U.S. press in the Watergate scandal. "The U.S. press," the survey concludes, "showed the world that the United States is a democracy conscious of its values and ready to defend them."

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