According to Reporters Without Borders, more than a third of the world's people live in countries where there is no press freedom. Overwhelmingly, these people live in countries where there is no system of democracy or where there are serious deficiencies in the democratic process. Freedom of the press is a problem for most non-democratic systems of government since strict control of access to information is critical to their existence.
To this end, most non-democratic societies employ state-run news organizations to promote the propaganda critical to maintaining an existing political power base and suppress any significant attempts by the media or individual journalists to challenge the approved "government line" on contentious issues.
In such countries, journalists operating on the fringes of what is deemed to be acceptable will very often find themselves the subject of considerable intimidation by the state.
This can range from simple threats to their professional careers firing, professional blacklisting to death threats, kidnapping, torture, and assassination.
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