freedom of the press isn't a popular idea.

[Ozme52]

um...yeah. I don't think you're on target. These numbers aren't based on what major corporations or the government think, but people in the street. ie people "without" power.

Why would ordinary people ever be against freedom of the press? That's the issue here. And those who aren't against free press, who would they want to regulate it. I'm sure that, that one question cannot have popped up in the minds of those who answered against free press. Is it that people in general are extremely stupid or do know something I don't? These numbers aren't only in oppressed countries like Russia. It's in the west to. Even in "the land of the free".

Maybe because the masses don't understand that for them to have a free press everyone has to have a free press. Most don't want to see things they don't agree with. They think the press is too liberal in reporting 'dissident' views.

In other words, their motto is "I have the right to say whatever I want... but you don't."

A very short-sighted perspective of freedom.