Freedom House, a Washington-based watchdog organization, publishes in its annual report on international press freedom, that for the eighth consecutive year, 2009 has recorded yet another gradual global decline in the state of the freedom of the press, where only one in six people live in countries which allow for such freedom.

The study, titled "Freedom of the Press 2010: A Global Survey of Media Independence," indicated that the biggest setback in press freedom has occurred in Latin America and the former Soviet Union, while Iran and Libya were categorized among the ten worst countries in which "independent media is either nonexistent or barely able to operate," reports Barry Schweid for The Associated Press.

The managing editor of the study, Karin Karlekar, announced that the 21st century has witnessed a contraction of the expansion of independent journalism experienced in the last years of the 20th century following the fall of the Berlin Wall, when new governments eliminate some media restrictions and opened new avenues for expression.

"Unfortunately, the positive changes seen in earlier decades have not been consolidated," Karlekar remarked.

More importantly, the notably negative trends in press freedom in China, the Middle East, and parts of Latin America prove worrying for many freedom advocates, as they fear that it could bring upon declines in other political and social freedoms as well, according to The Christian Science Monitor.

“What we’re seeing affecting the press is part of a general trend in freedom around the world,” says Karlekar. “It’s often press freedom that is the first to come under attack, and then that spreads to other freedoms more generally.”

Another attribute to the rise of press freedom had been the introduction of "new media" and the internet to the reporting arena. However, the Freedom House report reveals that these new tools have also taken their share of the global decline, as more government measures are implicated to rein their freedom.

Karlekar pointed out that “the new media have been quite an important part of expanding freedom and then more recently the trend of its retraction, especially in countries where the traditional media were quite limited." She added, “The new media were an opportunity for a more open space for expression, but now we’re seeing growing efforts to restrict that space.”

Suppressing online media outlets in the Middle East is increasingly becoming the biggest threat facing journalists and the freedom of the press. "In the Middle East the Internet had become the most open source of information,” Karlekar said. “But Egypt, where there’s a ferocious backlash against independent voices and bloggers, is just one example of what’s going on in the region.”

However, the region's biggest press freedom deterioration was reported in Iran, especially following the latest presidential elections, notes The Associated Press.

"When the Iranian Revolutionary Guards torture a journalist, or communist authorities in China imprison a blogger, or criminal elements in Russia assassinate yet another investigative reporter, it sends a clear message that every person fighting for basic rights is vulnerable to a similar fate," maintains Jennifer Windsor, the executive director of Freedom House.

While countries like Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, and the United Arab Emirates also registered declines in press freedom, the Freedom House report revealed positive improvement in Iraq, as political bias declined and attacks on journalists decreased.