The Reporters Without Borders (RSF) Press Freedom Index measures press freedom across countries annually. {pressfreedom.data} automates downloading, cleaning, and standardizing this data for analysis in R.
The RSF index spans 24 years (2002-2026, with 2011 missing because RSF did not publish that year) across three methodologically distinct periods:
On top of the structural changes, countries have been renamed or reclassified over time – 14 pairs have been consolidated to a single, current name, including:
Territorial variants are also resolved: Cyprus and Northern Cyprus
are kept as separate rows (they are distinct political entities), while
other territorial fragments (e.g., U.S. bases in Iraq) are removed. The
audit trail for these decisions – which rows were consolidated and from
what original name – is preserved in
data/processed/rwb_standardized.rds inside the package
source, though it is not part of the exported
rwb_standardized dataset described below.
Every row in the exported dataset has a valid ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 country code, so you can join it with other datasets without extra cleanup. We also found and fixed a subtle scaling bug in RSF’s raw score exports that had silently inflated many 2013-2026 scores by 100x (see the FAQ below for details).
This package handles all of the above automatically, providing a single, clean dataset ready for analysis.
If you haven’t installed the package yet, see the README’s Installation section.
library(pressfreedom.data)
data(rwb_standardized)
dplyr::glimpse(rwb_standardized)
#> Rows: 4,183
#> Columns: 20
#> $ year_n <dbl> 2002, 2002, 2002, 2002, 2002, 2002, 2002, 2002, 2002…
#> $ iso <chr> "AFG", "DZA", "AGO", "ARG", "AUS", "AUT", "AZE", "BH…
#> $ score <dbl> 35.50, 31.00, 30.17, 12.00, 3.50, 7.50, 34.50, 23.00…
#> $ rank <dbl> 104, 95, 93, 42, 12, 27, 101, 67, 118, 124, 13, 21, …
#> $ political_context <dbl> NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, …
#> $ rank_pol <dbl> NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, …
#> $ economic_context <dbl> NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, …
#> $ rank_eco <dbl> NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, …
#> $ legal_context <dbl> NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, …
#> $ rank_leg <dbl> NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, …
#> $ social_context <dbl> NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, …
#> $ rank_soc <dbl> NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, …
#> $ safety <dbl> NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, …
#> $ rank_saf <dbl> NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, …
#> $ zone <chr> "Asia-Pacific", "Middle East & North Africa", "Afric…
#> $ rank_n_1 <dbl> NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, …
#> $ rank_evolution <dbl> NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, …
#> $ score_n_1 <dbl> NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, …
#> $ score_evolution <dbl> NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, …
#> $ country_en <chr> "Afghanistan", "Algeria", "Angola", "Argentina", "Au…See ?rwb_standardized for the full column reference.
# Years available
unique(sort(rwb_standardized$year_n))
#> [1] 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
#> [16] 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026
# Number of countries per year
rwb_standardized |>
dplyr::group_by(year_n) |>
dplyr::summarise(
n_countries = dplyr::n_distinct(country_en),
.groups = "drop"
)
#> # A tibble: 24 × 2
#> year_n n_countries
#> <dbl> <int>
#> 1 2002 139
#> 2 2003 164
#> 3 2004 165
#> 4 2005 166
#> 5 2006 166
#> 6 2007 167
#> 7 2008 171
#> 8 2009 173
#> 9 2010 176
#> 10 2012 177
#> # ℹ 14 more rowsA: RSF did not publish a Press Freedom Index for 2011. The package preserves this gap rather than imputing values.
A: No. RSF changed its scoring methodology in 2013, so scores from 2002-2012 are not directly comparable to 2013-2026. When analyzing trends over time, restrict comparisons to the 2013-2026 period unless you are specifically studying methodology effects.
A: No. The new dimensions (Political, Economic,
Legal, Social, Safety) are only available from 2022 onward. Earlier
years have NA values.
A: Yes. RSF’s source files store percentages as bare
digits with implied decimals (e.g., “9189” means 91.89%) and drop
trailing zeros inconsistently, which had left many 2013-2026 scores up
to 100x too large in earlier cleaning attempts. This is now corrected
automatically via resolve_percent_scaling() before export,
so the score values you see are already on the correct
0-100 scale.
A: Yes. All rows have valid ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 codes
in the iso column. This is the standard for country
joins.
A: Yes. The data is normalized to ASCII, with special characters removed (e.g., Cote d’Ivoire, Turkiye), so it loads and joins correctly regardless of your operating system or locale settings.
A: Yes. RSF publishes the Press Freedom Index publicly to support journalism, research, and policy analysis, and does not restrict reuse for these purposes. See the next entry for citation templates.
A: Please cite the package:
This also includes a pointer to citing RSF’s original Press Freedom Index data, since the package citation does not cover the underlying dataset.
A: Open an issue on GitHub: https://github.com/petzi53/pressfreedom.data/issues
A: There are different places to learn more about the data:
vignette("visualizing-trends", package = "pressfreedom.data").?rwb_standardized in R.