JX Fund – European Fund for Journalism in Exile

Reyhana Masters and Laura Vidal examine how this global scourge is impacting the African and Latin America/Caribbean regions, the specific threat landscape for women journalists, and how those forced to flee can be better supported.

The Media & Journalism Research Center has published a study on Media Regulation, Government and Policy in Russia. It explains the core principles of media regulation in Russia and the various forms of censorship that the Russian political system has introduced and refined over the past decades, profiles several key influencers in the Russian media policy and provides context on the country’s media policy.

The Global Directory of Journalist Safety Trainers & Advisors is a searchable database of security professionals with experience and expertise in journalist safety. It has been created to provide the ACOS Alliance community with direct access to safety trainers and advisors around the world, and to help them connect with those who meet specific geographic and thematic safety needs.

Research by the Media and Journalism Research Center (MJRC) identified four key elements that lead to media capture as part of a matrix designed to study the phenomenon. These elements include control of media regulation, control of public media, use of state funds as a means of media control, and acquisition of private media outlets by businesses linked to the government.

As global crises, authoritarianism, and threats to press freedom escalate, more journalists are forced to flee their home countries, making independent journalism one of the most dangerous professions today. The recently published study by Körber Stiftung sheds light on the growing scale and challenges of exiled journalism in Germany.

Have you ever struggled to find a tool that does exactly what you need? You are not alone. More than 80 percent of open source researchers that participated in two Bellingcat surveys indicated that finding the right tools can be challenging. This is where Bellingcat’s new Online Investigations Toolkit comes in.

In “Navigating Digital Sovereignty: A Comparative Analysis of Internet Regulation in Russia and China,” the researchers delve into the intricate web of policies and technologies that define how two global powers control and manage their digital landscapes. This exploration sheds light on the Sovereign Internet Law of Russia and the Great Firewall of China, two landmark strategies aimed at asserting digital sovereignty.

Ahmet Dönmez, a Turkish journalist living in exile in Sweden, said in an interview with the Journalisten news website that he left the country for the United States some two years after surviving a brutal attack in Stockholm. Dönmez had narrowly escaped death after being severely beaten in a suburb of Stockholm in March 2022.

Women Press Freedom identifies transnational repression as a significant threat to journalists who have fled authoritarian regimes, highlighting the increased use of tactics like surveillance, harassment, and violence to silence dissent beyond national borders. According to the report, 50% of exiled women journalists were targeted through transnational repression reside in the EU.

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.

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.

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.

A new report just published from the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) shows that most “OECD DAC members are aware of the importance of the integrity of information environments to achieve their development and foreign policy objectives, and of the central role played by public interest media”. But even as autocratisation has risen, disinformation has surged and the financial threats confronting independent media have become existential, they have with just a few exceptions proved unable to increase their support for the sector.

Thousands of journalists around the world have had to seek exile in other countries in recent years amidst rising political repression, an independent United Nations investigator, Irene Khan, told the global body’s General Assembly in a report last week. Ms Khan’s findings shine a worrying light on the state of the world that all countries, especially democracies, need to reflect on and address.

The survival of exiled media relies on the survival of media professionals, emphasizing the importance of protecting journalists’ rights to practice their profession securely. A research report by the Exile Hub now sheds light on the critical situation of exiled women journalists from Myanmar.

Following last year’s joint investigation into the use of NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware against Galina Timchenko, co-founder, CEO, and publisher of Meduza, Access Now, the Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy at the University of Toronto (“the Citizen Lab”), and independent digital security expert Nikolai Kvantiliani have uncovered how at least seven more Russian, Belarusian, Latvian, and Israeli journalists and activists have been targeted with NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware within the EU.