According to RSF web site, most revenues for RSF came from self generated funding, with much lesser funding coming primarily from private donors including: French corporations, Center for a Free Cuba, Fondation de France, National Endowment for Democracy and a lesser amount from publoic sources from the French prime minister's office and the French foreign ministry, as well as the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie.
Rather than be totally spookified this looks like an assortment of sources, including the French government as well as the U.S. government. So partially spookified I think is a better characterization, which of course bears watching in terms of treatment of data for Cuba and Africa in particular.
On the other hand, it is hard to fudge statistics of assassinations of journalists like just occurred in Russia.
By the way, as I read the table on Worldwide Press Freedom by RSF indicating that the "United States In Iraq" was listed as: 137 out of 167 while Iraq was listed as: 157 out of 167, see: http://www.rsf.org/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=554 Neither of these seem like a glowing testimony by RSF to freedom of press, regardless of funding sources.
http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=17794
> Date: Sun, 8 Oct 2006 16:33:58 -0400
> From: "Yoshie Furuhashi" <critical.montages at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Re: RSF on Press Freedom
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Message-ID:
> <cd351fdc0610081333hdc04862r17b8f1d65e11e355 at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> On 10/8/06, John Mage <jmage at panix.com> wrote:
>> RSF is on the US government payroll, and is a thoroughly spookified
>> setup.
>>
>> "Thierry Meyssan, president of the Paris daily, Red Voltaire, published
>> an article in which he claimed Menard had negotiated a contract with
>> Otto Reich and the Center for a Free Cuba (CFC) in 2001. Reich was a
>> trustee of the center, which receives the bulk of its funding from the
>> U.S. Agency for International Development. The contract, according to
>> Meyssan, was signed in 2002 around the time Reich was appointed Special
>> Envoy to the Western Hemisphere for the Secretary of State. The initial
>> payment for RSF's services was approximately 24,970 euros in 2002
>> ($25,000), which went up to 59,201 euros in 2003 ($50,000).
>>
>> Lucie Morillon, RSF's Washington representative, confirmed in an
>> interview on April 29 that they are indeed receiving payments from the
>> Center for a Free Cuba, and that the contract with Reich requires them
>> to inform Europeans about the repression against journalists in Cuba and
>> to support the families of journalists in prison. Morillon also said
>> they received $50,000 from the CFC in 2004 and that this amount was
>> consistent from year to year."
>>
>> <http://www.counterpunch.org/barahona05172005.html>
>>
>> john mage
>
> We need a "watchdog" watch!
Indeed. RSF makes no secrets by the way where there money comes from: http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=17794
Income and expenditure | State of accounts at 31 December 2005