Swiss freesheets change the landscape

Avid readers in a heavily subsidised market

At first glance, tiny Luxembourg's population appears spoilt for newspaper choice. A country with a population of a medium-sized city (460,000) wakes up to eight nationally distributed dailies.

Russia: pluralism quashed by one-headed hydra

On the evening of 3 December, the day after parliamentary elections, all three of Russia's largest television channels began their news programmes with the same four-minute clip of a self-congratulatory speech by Vladimir Putin at a factory outside Moscow.

The Belgian press – deluded by a big hoax?

There cannot be a politician left in Belgium who has not been given an opportunity by the country's media to air his or her point of view about what now stands as the longest political crisis in the country's history.

Diverse, but Turkish press still lacks independence

Despite his stunning election win this July, Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan remains a prickly character when it comes to media criticism.

EU-bashing and red herrings in the UK

That the UK is not a member of the eurozone is at least partly down to the influence of Australian-American global media magnate Rupert Murdoch who is against British participation in the euro. Among the many print media titles owned by Murdoch's News Corporation are the Times, the Sunday Times, News of the World and the Sun; plus Sky Television and parts of ITV, both rivals to the state-owned BBC.