In its 2017 Press Freedom Index, Reporters Without Borders ranked the media environment in Eritrea at the bottom of a list of 180 countries. According to the BBC, "Eritrea is the only African country to have no privately owned news media", and Reporters Without Borders said of the public media, "They do nothing but relay the regime's belligerent and ultra-nationalist discourse. ... Not a single foreign correspondent now lives in Asmara." The state-owned news agency censors news about external events. Independent media have been banned since 2001. The Eritrean authorities had reportedly imprisoned the fourth highest number of journalists after Turkey, China and Egypt.