This web-based book, published annually by Freedom House, provides information about press freedom around the world. The website includes global and regional pages highlighting the main trends for each year, as well as detailed historical data since 1980 from the organisation's annual Freedom of the Press survey. Other features of the web edition include annual essays summarising the state of global press freedom, interactive maps showing the state of press freedom in a country for each year since 2002, and reports and ratings for every country in the world. The web pages also contain links to press freedom resources, including Freedom House press releases, essays, programmatic activities, and other press freedom and media support groups.

The resource covers 194 countries and territories and rates each country's media as Free, Partly Free, or Not Free. Country narratives examine the legal environment for the media, political pressures that influence reporting, and economic factors that affect access to information. It includes sections on methodology, the survey team, country reports, tables and charts, and essays.