Taiwan climbed 8 spots to 27th in the 2024 World Press Freedom Index released May 3 by France-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) in honor of World Press Freedom Day.

On a scale of 0 to 100, Taiwan scored 76.13, an increase of 0.59 points from 2023. This placed it among the 37 countries rated as having a “satisfactory” media environment in the annual survey of 180 countries and territories.

Taiwan finished fourth in the Asia-Pacific, behind New Zealand in 19th, Timor-Leste in 20th and Samoa in 22nd. It came ahead of Australia, 39th; South Korea, 62nd; Japan, 70th; Malaysia, 107th; Singapore, 126th; Hong Kong, 135th; and China, 172nd.

While RSF hailed Taiwan as a liberal democracy that respects the principles of media freedom, it noted that local journalists still suffer from a media environment dominated by sensationalism and the pursuit of profit.

The organization further described a media landscape that suffers from strong political polarization and a lack of recent measures to improve journalists’ editorial independence, as well as one of the lowest levels of trust in media among democracies. Despite these challenges, the report said that Taiwan retains its role as a press freedom model.

RSF’s assessment this year highlights the threats to press freedom around the world from political authorities: of the five categories used to compile the ranking, it is the political indicator that has fallen most.

Published annually since 2002, the index assesses countries and territories based on political context, legal framework, economic context, sociocultural context and safety. Depending on the scores, the media environments of those surveyed are rated as good, satisfactory, problematic, difficult or very serious. (SFC-E)