Taiwan climbs to 24th in World Press Freedom rankings, up 3 spots

Taipei, May 2 (CNA) Taiwan ranked 24th in the 2025 World Press Freedom Index released by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) on Friday, climbing three places from the previous year at a time when press freedom declined in most countries.

The latest rankings saw Taiwan moving up three spots to the 24th out of the 180 countries and regions reviewed by RSF, placing 2nd in the Asia-Pacific and 1st in East Asia.

Speaking with CNA, Aleksandra Bielakowska, advocacy manager at RSF's Asia-Pacific Bureau, said Taiwan's improvement was largely due to declines in other countries, as the country's global score, which stood at 77.04, remained nearly stagnant.

Bielakowska, who also serves as chairperson of RSF's Taipei chapter, said it was "quite significant" how public trust in the media had grown in Taiwan over the past five years, according to the Digital News Report by the Reuters Institute, from 24 percent in 2020 to 33 percent in 2024.

However, she took note of "government pressure" that had led the English-language public broadcaster TaiwanPlus to remove a report referring to then-U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump as a "convicted felon" last November.

The instance was "rare" but "deplorable and very worrying," Bielakowska said, adding that public media had a mandate to serve the public and must be able to operate independently from the government.

At the time, the Public Television Service (PTS), to which TaiwanPlus is affiliated, cited concerns over "[the report's] objectivity" as the main reason for the removal.

Culture Minister Li Yuan (李遠) later publicly said the controversy caused by the report was "very serious" and that his ministry had "informed" the PTS of its seriousness.

Bielakowska also expressed concern over the press freedom situation in Hong Kong, which dropped from 135th to 140th in the rankings and recorded its lowest global score of 39.86 in 2025.

"Basically, we see that it's starting to be almost impossible [for Hong Kong journalists] to continue working" in an environment where they face ongoing government pressure and, in some cases, sedition charges for their reporting, she said.

The latest rankings showed that press freedom worldwide deteriorated over the past year to the "difficult" category -- the second-lowest in the five-tier system -- for the first time since the index was launched in 2002.

"More than six out of 10 countries, or 112 in total, saw their overall scores decline in the index," the Paris-headquartered journalist group said, attributing the deterioration to economic pressure sustained by media outlets.

The situation largely stemmed from ownership concentration, pressure from advertisers and financial backers, and limited or nontransparent public funding, RSF said.

Norway again topped the rankings in 2025, followed by Estonia and the Netherlands, according to the index based on surveys with journalists, researchers and human rights activists worldwide.

At the other end of the list are China (178th), North Korea (179th), as well as Eritrea (180th) in the Horn of Africa.