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141 keep stories alive even when a reporter is harassed or killed. Yet Saudi columnist Jamal Khashoggi’s gruesome murder in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul sent another chilling message to journalists. Another troubling trend noted in the World Press Freedom Index is increasing efforts to intimidate the factual reporting in countries with traditions of democracy. US president Donald Trump’s attacks on ‘fake news’ to denounce unfavourable coverage have been adopted by authoritarian leaders in nations such as Turkey and Cambodia. As studies show strong correlations between independent media, stable democracies and limited corruption, hatred towards journalists is one of the worst threats to democracies. Reporters Without Borders also noted a substantial decline in press freedom in the Asia-Pacific region, where China is taking censorship and surveillance to new heights, and Vietnam, Cambodia and Singapore ranking increasingly close to China. These nations have been adopting China’s model of fighting dissent through strict control of mass and social media. Norway tops the list of countries where journalists have most freedom, followed by Sweden, the Netherlands, Finland and Switzerland, based on pluralism and media independence. North Korea finished last at 180, with Eritrea, Turkmenistan, Syria and China completing the bottom five. Overall, the 2019 report concludes, journalists around the world faced more hostility towards their work in 2018 than they did in previous years. 0 Reporters without Borders monitors . press freedom worldwide 1 Europe is still . 2 However, in Malta a journalist was killed because . 3 In Slovakia, another murder of a journalist caused . 4 Journalists work together to . 5 Authoritarian leaders are encouraged by President Trump’s . 6 Strong independent media are . 7 For authoritarian governments, it is also important to . 8 Northern European countries are champions of . How many of your guesses from exercise 13 were correct? Are you surprised by (some of) the countries mentioned in the article? Why?/Why not? Discuss in small groups. Expand your vocabulary: Adjectives describing critical journalism and its opponents Write definitions of the words below based on their meaning in the text. SPEAKING 15 LANGUAGE 16 a a authoritarian b factual c independent d informed g substantial h unfavourable e investigative f limited Mix your definitions and pass them on to someone else to match to the correct word. b Nur zu Prüfzwecken – Eigentum des Verlags öbv