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Documenting conflict has become increasingly difficult. Journalists face harassment, surveillance, misinformation campaigns and constant threats to their safety. “Being in exile is not synonymous with safety,” Zakaria says. “Intimidation takes place online in the form of harassment campaigns, digital threats, attempts at surveillance, disinformation and attacks on credibility and personal safety.”
Rezaian is providing training and support to exiled media as part of a Washington Post program. He argued that exiled media, including creator journalists, should be an integral part of the mainstream media ecosystem. “We have to stop looking at these people as a charity case. This is an asset, this is a resource,” he said.
Transnational repression doesn’t just work through direct attacks. It also works by slowly making your life more complicated. By wearing you down. By forcing you to be constantly on guard. By making you perceive even everyday situations differently. An unknown caller. A message. Someone who suddenly asks too many questions.
The future of Russian non-governmental media, such as for Meduza and Mediazona, is uncertain as Russian media-in-exile fights against receding revenue streams, the collapse of its audience, and the declining morale of its journalists. Mediazona has lost half of its subscribers since the start of the war. However, Mediazona’s audience increased during the 2023 attempted coup.
Since the Iran war started late February, the CPJ has documented a press crackdown across the Gulf, and tracked unpublicized cases of arrest, legal and financial actions against journalists and their media outlets. The escalation represents a significant and underreported threat to press freedom in the Gulf countries where media freedoms were already severely curtailed.
Exile is no guarantee of safety for journalists fleeing authoritarian regimes. Experts and a UN Special Rapporteur warn that states increasingly misuse Interpol mechanisms — including Red Notices and Travel Document Alerts — to harass, restrict, and pressure regime critics abroad, even those granted asylum. Social media platforms, they add, offer far too little protection.
JX Fund, with support of The Fix Research and Advisory, has just published the first major cross-country overview of what they call Exiled Independent Media, or EXIM. Across eight countries studied in depth, researchers identified at least 280 verified outlets, although the real number is almost certainly much higher.
Exiled independent media face growing pressure to survive financially and structurally in an increasingly unstable global news ecosystem. This essay revisits lessons from the 1970s media landscape to explore how journalism can adapt to fragmentation, platform dependency and shrinking resources, offering reflections on sustainability models for exile outlets today.
Five years into Myanmar’s civil war, the journalists covering it are running out of money. After the 2021 coup wiped out domestic revenue, exiled newsrooms in Thailand became dependent on foreign aid — now slashed. Today, founders drive taxis, reporters run food stalls, and a million views on Facebook earns less than $50. A crisis is quietly silencing independent coverage of one of Asia’s bloodiest conflicts.
Russia is increasingly branding journalists as “terrorists.” In October 2025, the state labeled Dozhd TV’s editor-in-chief a terrorist; weeks later, two more exiled media figures joined a blacklist alongside ISIS and Navalny’s organization. They are not alone — at least 60 media workers now appear on Russia’s “Terrorist and Extremist” list.
Press freedom is under unprecedented global pressure — and journalists are responding by building networks across borders. At the International Journalism Festival in Perugia, the taz panterstiftung launched its new panternetwork, uniting 500 journalists worldwide. Collaboration, they agree, is no longer optional: it’s the future of independent journalism.
Press freedom experts and a UN special rapporteur have warned that authoritarian governments continue to misuse Interpol mechanisms to target journalists living in exile, despite reforms aimed at preventing politically motivated cases. Several experts point to alleged abuses of Interpol mechanisms, particularly Red Notices and travel document alerts, which they said can severely restrict journalists’ movement and daily lives.
Freedom for Eurasia strongly condemns the defamation lawsuit brought by Gadzhi Gadzhiev against Natalia Sadykova before the courts of Ukraine — the country where Sadykova lives in exile and where her husband was assassinated.
The Association of Tibetan Journalists (ATJ), an organisation of Tibetan journalists living in exile, marked World Press Freedom Day on Saturday with the theme, “We are the custodians of our language. Let us learn, use, and promote the Tibetan language,” according to a report by Phayul.
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.
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.
“People of Baikal” is an online media outlet that has been operating since 2019 in regions that other independent media outlets rarely reach – the Irkutsk and Buryatia region. The female journalists working for “People of Baikal” report on the life in small cities and villages, in which poverty and hopelessness coexist.
In the aftermath of Myanmar’s February 2021 military takeover, independent journalist Linn soon fell foul of the regime’s crackdown on free expression. Having overthrown the elected government led by Aung San Suu Kyi, ending a decade of partial civilian rule, the junta – known as the Tatmadaw – quickly moved to clamp down on the media.