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How to Sustain Exiled Media: 70s Edition

  • News Tech Navigator
  • Ali Mahmood

Exile media outlets face a structural trap, argues Ali Mahmood: they cannot reach audiences inside the countries they fled, yet funders demand impact there. The only organic revenue comes from diaspora readers — a different audience with different needs. The result is an identity crisis that shows up in editorial decisions, analytics and pitch decks, with grant-surfing easier than solving it.

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Hong Kong Journalists Navigate Fear & Surveillance

  • France24
  • Natasha LI

Hong Kong’s government on Friday slammed foreign media and press freedom groups, rejecting claims of a crackdown on press freedom as “slander” after jailed media tycoon Jimmy Lai was awarded a free speech prize in Germany. Press freedom in the city has sharply declined since a 2020 National Security Law clamped down on dissent.

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How a Rohingya Journalist Fights for the Truth

  • Tagesspiegel
  • Mohamed Husein

Exiled Rohingya journalist Mohamed Husein reports on genocide, displacement and repression in Myanmar. In this Tagesspiegel essay, he describes the risks of telling the truth—from documenting atrocities in Rakhine State to continuing his work from exile in Germany.

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Türkiye’s Crackdown on Journalists in Exile Continues

  • RSF

Cyber censorship is quickly becoming a  weapon of choice for Turkish authorities looking to silence journalists in exile. At least five reporters have been targeted online, notably by having their social media accounts censored in Türkiye. Four of them are facing potential prison sentences as they are unjustly prosecuted — some of these lawsuits stretching over a decade.

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Challenges for Journalists in Africa’s Great Lakes

  • Reporters Without Borders (RSF)

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) sheds light on the precarious conditions facing journalists in the African Great Lakes region. The new report details threats from armed groups, state repression, legal harassment and displacement, showing how many reporters are pushed into exile or forced to work underground. It highlights risks to press freedom and the resilience of independent media.

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Exile Must Not Become the Norm, West African Journalists Warn

  • Media Foundation for West Africa

In recent years, democracy in West Africa has faced serious setbacks. Countries in the Sahel region, Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso, and others like Guinea and Guinea-Bissau have experienced military takeovers accompanied by violations of freedom of expression and press freedom. These violations have been severe enough to force journalists and civil society actors to flee their home countries for their own safety.

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100,000 Hong Kongers Who Chose Freedom Over Fear

  • Apple Daily UK
  • Hoi Yan Tsang

Since Beijing imposed the National Security Law in June 2020, Hong Kong has experienced one of the most significant waves of politically motivated emigration in modern Asian history. Human Rights Watch noted that over 100,000 Hong Kongers had fled the city in the years following the NSL’s imposition.

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Myanmar Junta Forms Multilingual Propaganda Body

    Myanmar’s military regime has established a new multilingual propaganda body to push its narrative and counter independent media coverage abroad. The committee, led by a senior junta official, will publish information sheets in Burmese, English, Chinese and Russian and ramp up social media operations to promote the regime’s policies and respond to criticism from exiled and independent outlets.

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    Belarusian Opposition Debates Talking With Dictator

    • Global Voices
    • Daria Dergacheva

    As Belarus prepares for another presidential election under President Lukashenko, opposition leaders and activists – including those in exile – are divided over whether engaging in dialogue with the regime can advance change. While some see negotiation as tactical, others warn it legitimizes repression and sidelines independent and exiled voices pushing for democratic reform.

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    How Exiled Journalists Report on Iran Without Internet

    • Reuters
    • Gretel Kahn

    As Iran imposed a near-total internet blackout during nationwide protests, exiled journalists became a crucial source of information. This Reuters Institute piece highlights how reporters outside the country verify videos, rely on fragmented sources and navigate disinformation, showing both the importance and the limits of reporting on a country cut off from the digital world

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    Nicaraguan Journalism in Exile: Insecurity and Resistance

    • Havana Times
    • Jose Mendieta

    More than 300 Nicaraguan journalists have been forced into exile since 2018, facing worsening economic hardship, shrinking funding and ongoing threats. This report examines how repression extends beyond borders through surveillance and intimidation, while many journalists struggle to survive, abandon the profession or continue reporting under precarious and often silent conditions.

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    Survey on Monetisation Practices of Exiled Newsrooms

    • jinn

    A new survey by jinn is examining how exiled media outlets are adapting their business models and monetization strategies amid recent funding challenges. Founders and managers of displaced newsrooms are invited to share their experiences.

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    Award-Winning Open Letter to Journalists Still in China

    • Vision Times
    • Li Bai’an

    Exiled Journalist Li Bai’an writes about the inner conflict of journalists in China, who are forced to ignore the truth under state pressure but still remember why they became journalists. She urges them to recognize that their conscience is not gone, only suppressed by fear under Xi Jinping’s rule.

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    Transnational Repression against Journalists in Exile

    • ECPMF

    Transnational repression (TNR), the cross-border targeting, intimidation, and harassment of journalists and human rights defenders, is increasingly undermining press freedom and human rights in Europe and beyond. Journalists in exile often remain subjects of sustained threats, surveillance, cyber-attacks, psychological pressure, and harassment long after reaching presumed safety.

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    Exiled Journalists Report on Legal Violations in Turkey

    • International Journalists
    • Eşe Karaduman

    On the occasion of International Human Rights Day, the Freedom Convention Turkey 2025 took place at the National Press Club in Washington. Organized by Advocates of Silenced Turkey (AST) under the slogan “Turkey at a Crossroads: Democracy and Justice,” the event brought together victims of state violence, dismissed academics, exiled journalists, human rights defenders, and civil society actors.

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    ‘We’ve Seen This Before’: Lessons for the Press on Authoritarianism

    • PEN America
    • Julia Goldberg

    Weaponizing the law to silence journalists, turning reporters into public enemies, and cutting off access to information are all tactics familiar to four journalists — Pethő, M. Gessen, Ramón Zamora, and Sevgi Akarçeşme — who gathered at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY to discuss their experiences witnessing the rise of global authoritarian regimes and the warning signs they’re watching emerge in the United States.

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    EU’s Dangerous ‘Return Hubs’ Policy

    • ECPMF

    The EU’s new return policy risks jeopardising the lives of vulnerable journalists and human rights defenders living in exile. As such, it undermines the very principles of press freedom and human rights it aims to uphold and the safe haven the EU seeks to provide for journalists from all over the world threatened for reporting on the truth. ECPMF and undersigning organisations urge the EU to immediately reconsider these adverse effects and prioritise the protection of those who have already fled persecution.

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    Iranian Intelligence Expands Spy Network in Germany

    • Iran International

    Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence is intensifying efforts to recruit dissidents in Germany as informants by blackmailing their relatives back home, according to an investigation by the Die Welt newspaper. The report details the chain of events and techniques agents use through social media and messaging platforms like WhatsApp to turn exiles into “disposable informants” in espionage parlance.

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