Freedom House report: Georgia the country with most free media in region

Georgia has the most free media environment in the Caucasus region based on the newest report released by leading international watchdog Freedom House earlier today.

The Freedom of the Press 2017 report put Georgia among 72 states around the world with Partly Free media landscape.

On the assessment scale where 0 points categorise a country as Free and 100 as Least Free, Georgia received 50 points from the organisation.

The result classified the country as the most free of its region where Azerbaijan, Armenia, Turkey and Russia all fall in the Not Free section of the report.

Georgia’s status in the report — which summarises findings throughout 2016 — changed only one point from last year’s result (49).

Beyond the region, the results classify Georgia with other Partly Free countries including Italy, Poland and Croatia.

Based on the points score Georgia is ahead of Eastern European states including Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova.

The Freedom of the Press report assessed 199 countries and territories, of which 61 were rated Free, 72 as Partly Free and 66 as Not Free.

The report also revealed that 13 percent of the world’s population lived in countries with Free media environment, with 42 percent living in states with Partly Free press and 45 percent in those classified as Not Free.

Freedom House said the percentage of people living in countries with Free media in 2016 "remained at its lowest level since 1996”, when the watchdog started including population data in the annual report.

Established in the United States in 1941, the organisation works for "expansion of freedom and democracy around the world”