A climate of fear and tension combined with increasing control over newsrooms by governments and the private sector are the biggest challenges to media freedom today, claims Reporters Without Borders in its World Press Freedom Index. The Index ranks 180 countries according to the freedom allowed to journalists. The countries that fell farthest this year include Poland (47th, down 29 spots), where the ultra-conservative government seized control of the public media, and Tajikistan, which plunged 34 places, to 150th, as a result of the regime’s growing authoritarianism.