2008 was far from a good year for Central Asian media:
The Paris-based watchdog group Reporters Without Borders ranked Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan near the bottom of its list, at 163rd and 171st place, respectively, out of 173. Kazakstan at 125 and Kyrgyzstan at 111 also scored poorly, while Tajikistan performed best of the five Central Asian states at 106th place.