You can quote news stories (you will always be able to find an exaggerated sensationalist piece about how terrible things are, no matter the conditions, in any country. I've read plenty of articles on HN for example that describe the U.S. police force as essentially identical to the Stasi) or you can actually ask the reporters in those countries what their experience is. Both are valuable. This survey purports to do the second. Reporters' experience may generally be expressed as relative both to surrounding countries, previous conditions in the same country, and relative to the expectations of the reporters in each country, of course, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't ask them.
If there was a survey of technologists that summarized their opinions on a technical issue, but there were articles about it saying something else, would you say "well, the survey is obviously biased, look at these news articles, they tell us what the facts are no matter what the experts say"? No, you would not. Because it would be disastrously foolish to ignore the opinions of experts who actually work in the field, subjective as they may be.
If there was a survey of technologists that summarized their opinions on a technical issue, but there were articles about it saying something else, would you say "well, the survey is obviously biased, look at these news articles, they tell us what the facts are no matter what the experts say"? No, you would not. Because it would be disastrously foolish to ignore the opinions of experts who actually work in the field, subjective as they may be.