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pressfreedom

An interactive Shiny dashboard for exploring the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) Press Freedom Index, 2002–2026, across countries, regions, and time — including a five-dimension breakdown (political, economic, legal, social, safety) available from 2022 onward.

Two ways to use it

  • pbaumgartner-pressfreedom.share.connect.posit.cloud — for casual, interactive exploration. No install needed, full feature support, and stable long-term hosting.

  • As an R package — for heavy exploration, repeated sessions, or offline use, avoiding any rate limits entirely:

    remotes::install_github("petzi53/pressfreedom")
# or: pak::pak("petzi53/pressfreedom")

library(pressfreedom)
run_app()

Both run the exact same app code (inst/app/app.R), so the experience is identical either way.

Data

Data is sourced from RSF and standardized by the companion pressfreedom.data package, which pressfreedom loads live at startup (pressfreedom.data::rwb_standardized) rather than bundling. See its pkgdown site for the full data dictionary, cleaning pipeline, and known-issue documentation. The dashboard’s own “About” tab covers scoring bands, methodology, and limitations.

Package structure 

pressfreedom/
├── R/run_app.R          # Exported run_app() launcher
├── inst/app/
│   ├── app.R            # Shiny entry point (also deployed as-is to Posit Connect Cloud)
│   └── R/                # Modules: map, trends chart, country profile, inputs, flags, about, helpers
└── DESCRIPTION

Citation & Contact

How to cite:

If you use this package or the underlying Press Freedom Index data, please cite both:

  1. The pressfreedom R package:

    Peter Baumgartner (2026). pressfreedom: Press Freedom Dashboard.
R package version 0.1.0.
https://github.com/petzi53/pressfreedom

  2. The original RSF data:

    Reporters Without Borders (RSF). World Press Freedom Index.
https://rsf.org/en/index

Found a bug or have a question?

Open an issue on GitHub.

License

MIT License. See LICENSE for details.

Credits

The hex logo’s microphone icon is from Flaticon (microphone icons created by Magnific).

Author

Peter Baumgartner · · ORCID · GitHub