how free are your countries journalists?

[nomix]

While the Swedish mafia is going around telling people to pay, and when they say "må jag betala?" (I have to pay?), they answer "aaaa det ska du!" with a very distinkt whistling tone.

Really, taking the micky out of the Norwegian language when you're from Sweden is like talking like that sheriff in the Bond movies and telling a brit he talkes really weird.

You don't even have dialects, and I can promise you, we sound very bloody scary when we get grumpy. While your cops are so un-scary that a mate of mine put a nasal spray into the nostrils of one of them when he was drunk in Sweden.

[gaasc]

[Cowboy]

Where at nr 11 on this.....what a joke....If there was any form off pressfreedom over here this country would be a real democracy instead off the travesty it is today.

[hajj]

I take it that you are not a fan of the Cordon sanitaire? I know too little of the Belgian media to know whether they are actually biased in that case, but if they are you don't deserve to be that high.

[nomix]

Well, you could have a look at what RSF writes about Belgium. I'll quote it.

With the best European legislation on protection of sources, Belgium, the capital of the European Union, is well placed on the issue of press freedom. However 2008 was marked by abusive and unjustified use of fines, summonses, or legal action against journalists. Censorship of the weekly Humo and proceedings opened against the publisher of a cartoon provided a reminder that press freedom is never a vested right.

Article 25 of the Belgian constitution provides that the press is free and that censorship can never be established. However, in November 2008, Flemish-language weekly Humo was sentenced to withdraw the magazine from sale or pay 250 euros for each copy remaining on newsstands after it published satirical photo montages relating to supposed privileged treatment for Sylvie Ricour in her controversial appointment as secretary to the federal police chief Fernand Koekelberg.

It was also publication of a cartoon, of Belgian industrialist Georges Forrest wearing the leopard skin hat of former president of Zaire (now DR Congo) Mobutu Sese-Seko, that led to Flemish monthly Mo Magazine being ordered to pay a symbolic euro in damages.

Radio Télévision Belge Francophone (RTBF) had a busy legal year after mayor of the city of Huy, Anne-Marie Lizin, summoned one of its journalists Patrick Remacle in January and demanded 100,000 euros in damages after the journalist made two reports condemned her running of the city. She was forced to quit her job following a long dispute, in February 2009.

Investigative magazine “Front Page Questions” was also the target of legal proceedings, the biggest of which related to a programme that questioned the presence in Belgium of four people sought by the Rwandan courts for taking part in the genocide. The magazine was also sentenced in November 2008 by a court in Brussels to pay one euro in damages to veterinary surgeon Jean Bastien, close to the entourage of Prince Laurent of the Belgian royal family, over a report accusing him of taking advantage of his position for personal enrichment. The case is now under appeal.

Although it was a private case, unconnected with her work at the Belgian TV and radio RTBF, the arrest and 21-day imprisonment of journalist Wahoub Fayoumi, for belonging to a terrorist group, provoked a debate within the profession. The tapping of her phone and putting her work computer under seal renewed suspicions of police investigation methods. The case also restarted a debate on the compatibility between freely entered political commitment in private life and the profession of journalism.

[AiR]

Originally Posted by nomix

You don't even have dialects, and I can promise you, we sound very bloody scary when we get grumpy. While your cops are so un-scary that a mate of mine put a nasal spray into the nostrils of one of them when he was drunk in Sweden.

No you don't, you just sound even more high pitched when you're drunk and angry
We have many more dialects than you do!
Gulebøj!

[Homer_Bart]

Singapore will have to be one of the most not-free. Journalists cannot mention anything racial or defame any politician/political groups etc.

If someone were to be like Clarkson and call the PM a "one-eyed idiot", he is waiting to be fined, then jailed, then exiled, then have his past wrongdoings all dug up, then be flown back, then brought back to court, then more suffering. Something like that happened before quite some time ago.

No freedom of speech, it's for the greater good, really.

[nomix]

Originally Posted by AiR

No you don't, you just sound even more high pitched when you're drunk and angry
We have many more dialects than you do!
Gulebøj!

I had the great pleasure of visiting a school in Sweden, and the guy teaching Swedish language told me "dialects are almost dead in Sweden". According to him, the culture of dialects in Norway was waaaay more developed than in Sweden.

[salle]

Well we still have dialects in Sweden, regardless of what your teacher told you.
Up until about 30 years ago though school, and the national broadcasters in Sweden had tried to take away dialects. But there's still allot of dialects around. They're lumped into 7 groups, 1 being the Swedish spoken in Finland. But within these there's differences from village to village.

[Karoug]

^Not to mention that they use subtitles on TV when someone is "talking" Skånska...

[AiR]

In the early 1900's it was decided by men with high hats that dialects were an abomination and had to be exterminated so everyone would speak the same language. Dialects were up until 1982 regarded "unsanitary vocabular" and during the decades many smaller dialects perished. So while Nomix in his usual way is correct I'll completely ignore that and go on about something completely different.

We have more trees than you can ever have

Originally Posted by Homer_Bart

Singapore will have to be one of the most not-free. Journalists cannot mention anything racial or defame any politician/political groups etc.

If someone were to be like Clarkson and call the PM a "one-eyed idiot", he is waiting to be fined, then jailed, then exiled, then have his past wrongdoings all dug up, then be flown back, then brought back to court, then more suffering. Something like that happened before quite some time ago.

No freedom of speech, it's for the greater good, really.

I had no idea. That's weird. 133 out of 175. Thailand actually scores a bit better at 130, but with the exception of Japan and Australia, asian countries in general score quite low. Tradition?

[nomix]

Originally Posted by salle

Well we still have dialects in Sweden, regardless of what your teacher told you.
Up until about 30 years ago though school, and the national broadcasters in Sweden had tried to take away dialects. But there's still allot of dialects around. They're lumped into 7 groups, 1 being the Swedish spoken in Finland. But within these there's differences from village to village.

It wasn't my teacher. It was the Swedish teacher in Swedish language at the Swedish school. That said, there is dialects, but they are primarily tonal, not verbal.

You are nowhere near what we have in Norway, where there's a distinct difference in tone, wording and verbals when you drive from one place to another, and then we're talking about small places like 200-300 people.

[Karoug]

Nomix: May i introduce Gävlemål!

+ YouTube Video

Seriously OT though..

[salle]

Originally Posted by AiR

[...] but with the exception of Japan and Australia, asian countries in general score quite low.

Australia = Oceania not Asia...

Originally Posted by nomix

You are nowhere near what we have in Norway, where there's a distinct difference in tone, wording and verbals when you drive from one place to another, and then we're talking about small places like 200-300 people.

"No where near as many" and "don't have any" are two different things... so thanks for playing and all of that. And there's enough dialectal words for someone like me to not understand certain conversations in Swedish. And even though I speak with very little dialectal pronunciation* I still use a Stockholm vocabulary that would let at least any linguist know where I'm from.

* I do of course have a dialectal pronunciation but it's the standardized one, which stems from the region I grew up in.

[nomix]

Originally Posted by Karoug

Nomix: May i introduce Gävlemål!

Seriously OT though..

That's a bit like every dialect in Trøndelag, Hedmark, Oppland and a lot of places close to where I live on the coast of Helgeland, actually, a lot of people from my part of Helgeland speak a bit like that.

Originally Posted by salle

"No where near as many" and "don't have any" are two different things... so thanks for playing and all of that. And there's enough dialectal words for someone like me to not understand certain conversations in Swedish. And even though I speak with very little dialectal pronunciation* I still use a Stockholm vocabulary that would let at least any linguist know where I'm from.

* I do of course have a dialectal pronunciation but it's the standardized one, which stems from the region I grew up in.

The difference is that we have had a lot more focus on keeping settlement outside the cities and the central areas of Norway, that has not been prioritised anywhere near as much in Sweden in the time after the war.

Sorry for being a bit unclear in the first posts, it was mostly a parody of Norwegian-Swedish hatred, but I agree with karoug, we're thouroughly off topic.

[Firecat]

I think we can learn a thing or two from the Saudi's

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/us_saudi_flogging

There are a number of journalists I'd like to give lashes too.

[AiR]

That'll help Saudi Arabia climb from position 163... not. Lovely place Saudiarabia, more closed than NK. At least I can go on holiday to NK.

[Blind_Io]

How are my country's journalists?

All dead or retired. All we have left are talking heads.

[argatoga]

Originally Posted by Blind_Io

How are my country's journalists?

All dead or retired. All we have left are talking heads.

[tigger]

Originally Posted by Blind_Io

How are my country's journalists?

All dead or retired. All we have left are talking heads.

We've got Jon Stewart. No, really:

+ YouTube Video

We've got great journalists here, you just have to completely ignore the crap that's on the 24 hour "news" networks.