This perspective is from Democracy Digest:

The novel coronavirus is compounding preexisting threats to press freedoms around the world, according to a new report by the international watchdog organization Reporters Without Borders, ABC News reports:

Reporters Without Borders, also known by its French acronym RSF, released its annual ranking of countries based on the strength of their press freedoms last week, highlighting several countries – including Iran (ranked 173rd) and China (ranked 177th) – whose poor rankings reflect the way those governments “censored their major coronavirus outbreaks extensively.”

“Iran and China are two countries that saw the biggest outbreaks early on, and they’re the two countries where you didn’t really see journalists being able to operate,” Dokhi Fassihian, Executive Director of Reporters Without Borders USA, told ABC News. “I don’t for a minute believe the numbers they’re reporting.”

Read the full story here.