The US isn't doing great in the Press Freedom Index[0]. Norway, or my home country the Netherlands, would IMO be much better examples of "extreme freedom of speech". I'd say the US is strong on this point, but not at the extremes.
I guess I'd define "extreme end" as a country that doesn't threaten jail time for wrongthink.
In the Netherlands you prosecuted Geert Wilders!!! Some press outfits from the U.S.A. would be prosecuted left and right.
On the Geert Wilders issue: it is a lot more nuanced than how you present it. The quote Geert Wilders prosecuted for (translation mine):
"In this city and the Netherlands, do you want more or fewer Moroccans?"
the crowd starts chanting 'fewer'
"Then we're going to take care of that!"
This was not just a casual remark, as the judge determined that it was a scripted section of a speech meant to evoke that particular reaction from the crowd. The charges were "inciting hate", "inciting discrimination" and "criminal insult of and inciting discrimination of a group", the group being the Moroccan race (race as defined by Dutch law)[0].
The first charge was dismissed, but he was convicted of the latter; the judge decided to give no penalty because he considered the public conviction enough in the case of a public figure. The maximum penalty he could have received was two years in jail, though that would have been highly irregular; a fine is generally used.
Personally, I think Geert Wilders adds little of value. He consequently refuses to set (literally) any concrete goals for his party and only runs on populism.
The context matters, too. The Dutch legal system works very differently from the American system. Jurisprudence and the letter of the law are used, but the principle of arriving at a reasonable, proportional and good faith judgement is weighed very heavily when compared to the American system.
Our prison situation is that prisons are closing. We have 9,145[2] prisoners as of September 2016, out of a population of 16,979,120[3].
[0]: https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tweede_zaak-Geert_Wilders [1]: https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redelijkheid_en_billijkheid [2]: http://statline.cbs.nl/StatWeb/publication/?VW=T&DM=SLNL&PA=... [3]: http://statline.cbs.nl/Statweb/publication/?DM=SLNL&PA=37296...
Yeah, we call it the First Amendment.
"... which asks questions about pluralism, media independence, environment and self-censorship, legislative framework, transparency, and infrastructure"
that's not the same thing as speech, in the US at least.
Similarly it's possible to have freedom of speech but no free press, e.g. anyone can say whatever they wish on the street and out loud but all major media organizations systematically overwhelm or crush journalistic dissent and control the media narrative as dictated by a tiny oligarchy of wealthy elites which is in some large part the case in the U.S. or by the government directly as in many other more traditional repressive countries.