Reporters Without Borders (RSF per its French abbreviation) published the latest edition of its annual World Press Freedom Index (WPFI) earlier this week. Foreign elite and many members of society consider this organization to be neutral and its ranking system as the global standard. It’s for that reason why their media usually scramble to report on their country’s place in the WPFI and analyze any change that might have occurred within the past year. This, however, is an exercise in perception management that’s conducted with the limited parameters set by the RSF’s liberal-globalist ideologues.

To be clear, that’s not to say that there isn’t any value to be derived from review this organization’s press reports and its yearly rankings. Some of it is objectively accurate and shared without any presumably ideological motivations such as declaring that certain European and Latin American countries have some of the most impressive press freedoms in the world. That’s objectively true and undeniable, but other aspects of their information products can’t be relied upon as accurate or having been published without any ulterior ideological or perception management motivation.

For instance, while acknowledging the UK and US’ joint persecution of WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange, those two Western countries still supposedly rank among the freest media societies in the world according to the WPFI. Quite a few average folks would of course disagree with that assessment and for good reason, yet the presumed credibility and neutrality naively associated with the RSF in the elites’ minds as well as many members of society precondition them to extend credence to this contentious conclusion, et al. It’s not so much that the RSF is lying, per se, but just that it represents one particular worldview.

That’s the liberal-globalist one that presupposes the superiority of the US-led Western model of International Relations, which its adherents regard as universal and therefore believe that it’s inevitable that the rest of the world will eventually adopt it with time. This contrasts with the conservative-sovereigntist worldview that believes in each society’s right to independent socio-economic and political development in order to retain the largest amount of sovereignty over affairs within their borders.

The first-mentioned can be simplified as unipolar since it refers to retaining the US’ declining hegemony over the world, albeit with some moderate reforms as needed but nevertheless never changing the actual structure of this model, while the second is veritably multipolar because it encourages the emergence of new influence-power centers in an attempt to restore equality and justice to the world. With this in mind, it would have been verboten for the liberal-globalist RSF to rank the UK or US too low.

While acknowledging some of their media shortcomings as a so-called “limited hangout” for the purpose of constructively critiquing some problems that are impossible to ignore without losing one’s credibility, RSF and other organizations like it that present themselves as neutral authorities in their spheres still adhere to their worldview’s ideological parameters. In this context, it means that liberal-globalist governments will always be ranked higher than conservative-sovereigntist ones.

This de facto hierarchy is weaponized to meddle in the affairs of conservative-sovereigntist states across the Global South by manipulating the dynamics between both ideological camps within them. The controversy over Pakistan’s latest ranking on the WPFI is a perfect case in point. Incumbent Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who replaced Imran Khan under scandalous circumstances, lambasted his predecessor on Twitter for presiding over their country’s 12-point drop over the past year alone.

Former Human Rights Minister Shireen Mazari, however, pushed back against Pakistan’s ranking on the report and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s associated criticisms of her country by reminding America that it’s the same state that’s restricted the operations of RT and other Russian media. The difference between these two influential figures’ worldviews is that Prime Minister Sharif extends credence to the WPFI report while former Minister Mazari believes that its rankings aren’t credible.

Extrapolating further, it can be said that the new authorities are liberal-globalist in their leanings considering their eagerness to patch up Pakistan’s troubled ties with the US-led West while the ones who they replaced were much more aligned with conservative-sovereigntist views. It’s this interplay and resultant friction between their respective visions for Pakistan’s future that’s driving the political crisis that followed former Prime Minister Khan’s ouster under scandalous circumstances last month.

Pakistan is but a case study that represents lots of Global South countries in general with respect to the reaction from their elites and members of society to the yearly rankings produced by liberal-globalist organizations like the RSF that present themselves as neutral authorities in their spheres. They also provoke a discussion about that given state’s direction over the past year and its future path, which provides opportunities to exploit preexisting socio-political differences if the US-led West is so inclined.

Once again, it should be remembered that some of the observations contained in such organization’s reports and yearly rankings can be useful, but that they shouldn’t be assumed to be purely neutral or produced without any ulterior ideological or perception management motivations. Only upon awareness of the ingrained bias within these groups can one better sort out the wheat from the chaff, so to speak, in order to make use of the good while ignoring the bad.