For example, not having to run all (or huge parts of) your stories through a censor before being allowed to publish them (e.g. China, Israel).
Or, like in Germany, various protections like e.g. the police not allowed without complex judiciary checks to monitor the phones and internet connections of a journalist, or to go into a newspaper office and seizing random data to uncover a source.
You can be prosecuted for reasons entirely unrelated to your publishing of a story, even if that is the true reason. Do you think people don't try to intimidate journalists?