JX Fund – European Fund for Journalism in Exile

In this article Emma Löfgren, editor at The Local and contributor at The Fix, rounds up some of the insights she learned when interviewing five leading experts for audience building.

Yavuz Baydar is an award-winning journalist, editor and analyst in Turkish and international media. Since the failed Turkish coup d’etat in 2016 Yavuz Baydar has had to live and work in exile. In conversation with Diana Huth, Yavuz Baydar analyzes the geopolitical implications of the 2024 elections and calls for greater support for exile journalism.

Finding funding for your journalism organization can be a daunting responsibility — especially if your organization does not have someone experienced in fundraising. The process is similar to investigative journalism: first, you must research funding sources, then prepare your story, and write a compelling narrative that makes the reader understand the importance of your work — and the need to fund it.

Newsletters are an effective way to establish a direct contact with your audience, unmitigated by the whims of social media algorithms. For individual journalists, newsletters can be a profitable option to share their work with their readers. But how?

In Spring 2024, a delegation from the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF) conducted a press freedom fact-finding mission to Tbilisi, Georgia as part of a project funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Today, ECPMF publishes a report detailing the findings of the mission, which paint a picture of independent media in the midst of an existential crisis.

When forcing journalists into exile fails to silence them, authoritarian governments turn to transnational repression. Read here how Cuban repression has followed editor José Jasán Nieves Cárdenas to the United States.

At least 300 journalists have fled Nicaragua, Ecuador and Guatemala and gone into exile in recent years, according to various press freedom organizations. Numbers from Venezuela are unavailable, but that country has experienced a mass exodus of millions, including journalists.

The investigative beat has never been an easy one in Latin America. From reporting under authoritarian regimes to confronting significant security risks in a region that faces the added challenge of impunity, and from the difficulties of reporting amidst persistent financial struggles to handling the backlash that comes with exposing acts of corruption — the circumstances facing reporters have long been challenging.

On June 18, 2024, Kazakhstani opposition journalist Aidos Sadykov, who received political asylum in Ukraine 10 years ago, was shot outside of his Kyiv apartment. Meduza shares an abridged translation of a report by Mediazona Central Asia on who Sadykov was, why he was forced into exile, and what we know about his murder.

From Afghanistan and Russia, to Venezuela, Eritrea and beyond, journalists globally have fled – and continue to flee – threats to their lives and livelihoods under authoritarian regimes. Entire newsrooms in these contexts, too, have shuttered operations to avoid imminent danger to their employees and financial ruin.

This report covers the period from 2021 to 2023, during which almost 70% of all attacks on media workers in Russia have been recorded since monitoring began in 2017. The attacks of the Russian authorities on journalists and bloggers over the past three years have taken on an unprecedented scale.

Four years after the enactment of a draconian national security law – a turning point in the decline of press freedom in Hong Kong – Reporters Without Borders (RSF) takes a closer look at the plight of exiled journalists and calls for greater support for their diaspora-led media.

With conflict, repression and censorship driving large numbers of media into exile, VOA spoke with journalists on the front lines: from navigating gang violence in Ecuador, assassination plots targeting Iranian journalists on British and U.S. soil, and repressive policies affecting Afghan media.

This documentary explores the systematic suppression of media and freedom of expression by authoritarian regimes in Russia, Turkey, and Belarus and the state of exiled journalism – through interviews with journalists, who risk their lives to uphold the truth.

At least 26 governments have targeted journalists abroad, according to Freedom House, which has identified 112 incidents against journalists from 2014 to 2023, including assault, detention, unlawful deportation, rendition, and assassination. For some journalists, leaving the country might not always guarantee safety.

Threats, repression, conflict, and unrest: across the world, these and other factors are pushing journalists into exile in record numbers. In a striking development, exiled or soon-to-be exiled journalists now make up more than half of the people CPJ assists. While exile is a global issue, three countries — Russia, Iran, and Afghanistan — stand out as places from which journalists flee only to face further insecurity. Below, find case studies on each country.

On the only radio station in the remote Ecuadorian town of Baeza, morning show host Juan Carlos Tito updates listeners on the weather, recent power outages, and repairs to a bridge spanning a nearby river. For the last 24 years, Tito, 53, has been the trusted voice of Radio Selva, broadcasting important community news to this town of 2,000 in the Andean highlands. But now, Tito’s voice is beamed into Baeza from abroad.