JX Fund – European Fund for Journalism in Exile

The Voices Awards is an international competition rewarding innovative ideas and changemakers in the fields of journalism and media freedom, which awards 25 projects with €1,200. This amount is intended to cover both the prize money and the necessary travel and accommodation expenses for the winner to attend the Voices Festival in November, where the winners will be presented.

The Invisible Life grant programme will form part of Journalismfund’s Environmental Investigative Journalism Grant programme, to raise awareness, increase transparency and promote well-informed public debate on food and sustainability by supporting journalists. The focus is on the lives and welfare of farmed animals.

Two separate opportunities are available: you may apply for a grant (which includes participation in the event if selected), or apply to attend as a participant (call for participation will be open from 6 July to 1 September 2026). Separate applications are required. Grant recipients will automatically be registered to attend the event in Strasbourg on 9–10 November.

The Fund for Investigative Journalism provides grants and other support for reporters to produce high-quality, unbiased, nonpartisan investigative stories that have an impact. Freelance journalists, staff reporters and media outlets are eligible for grants, and their investigations can be for print, online or broadcast stories, books, documentaries or podcasts.

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 challenged much of the common Western understanding of Russia. How can the world better understand Russia? What are the steps forward for Western policy? The Eurasia Center’s “Russia Tomorrow” series seeks to reevaluate conceptions of Russia today and better prepare for its future tomorrow.

Russia’s parliament unanimously passed a law targeting exiled critics, including “foreign agents,” with frozen bank accounts, revoked driving licenses, and denied consular services like passport renewal. RSF warns the Kremlin is extending repression beyond its borders to silence independent journalism abroad.

Since Russians invasian in 2022 many journalists emigrated to keep independently reporting about the war to Russians, many outlets have launched English-language versions of their publications in order to find new revenue streams to support their work, as the Russian authorities have introduced increasingly restrictive legal measures targeting support for independent media.

In a series of workshops, exiled journalists now living in the UK told how all faced significant barriers to continuing their careers. Many struggled to gain a foothold in the UK media industry, so the Rory Peck Trust is partnering with City St George’s, University of London, to enable one journalist-in-exile to complete an M.A. in International Journalism.

Media development actors and funders globally are grappling with how best to measure results. An updated version of the IMS impact assessment tool is out now. It is also translated into six different language. The tool help editorial teams measure the impact of media projects based on effective ways to define targets and track progress and results.

As Russian authorities tighten the screw on popular messaging app Telegram and promote a state-backed “super app” that observers say could act as a surveillance tool, independent journalists and media outlets inside and outside Russia say it will become more difficult to report stories securely and stay connected to audiences.

Information control has long been central to the Kremlin. Since Vladimir Putin took power, independent journalism has faced growing repression, accelerated after the Kursk submarine disaster (2000), the Moscow theater siege (2002), and the Beslan school hostage crisis (2004). Critical outlets were punished, steadily eroding Russia’s independent media.

Poisonings, cyberattacks, raids on the homes of family member, russian journalists are persecuted by their authoritarian home country even when in exile. Yet, media professionals in exile in Germany, their host country, are a vital part of an informed society and defend all of our rights to reliable information. Read the RSF report on it here.

RSF finds Russian journalists in Germany face transnational repression including surveillance, digital attacks, intimidation, pressure on relatives and even suspected poisonings. The report urges Germany and the EU to better protect exiled media through dedicated support, reporting mechanisms, sanctions and coordinated action to safeguard press freedom.

For weeks in the spring of 2026, residents of Moscow experienced major disruption as mobile internet shutdowns which had earlier affected several Russian regions finally reached the capital. While the partial shutdowns were softened in the following weeks, internet users across Russia continued to experience serious difficulties accessing most websites…

The Kremlin is using legal means to go after its critics everywherem, even in Switzerland.
Since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the number of NGOs, media outlets, and dissidents outside Russia who have come under the Kremlin’s scrutiny has been rising, and is expected to reach another record high this year.

Following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, many independent Russian journalists and opposition politicians fled abroad, rebuilding their channels. This article argues that, operating from exile, they have fallen into a trap: creating great content, but the Kremlin controls it. They must shift to a radical new approach, teaching citizens inside Russia how to safely test reality.

While Finland ranks among the world leaders in press freedom, it still offers too few measures to help journalists forced into exile continue their work. This is the central finding of “When You Arrive in Finland, You Step into a Dark Room”, a report backed by eight Finnish organisations, including Reporters Without Borders (RSF) Finland.

Journalists in exile clearly view the persecution in Russia as a form of totalitarian repression directed against any opposition to the war or criticism of the Kremlin. The Censorship is being tightened further and free access to the internet is being restricted, aiming at intimidating people further ahead of the upcoming elections and to suppress any sign of social resistance.