JX Fund – European Fund for Journalism in Exile

This article explains how international journalism festivals have become important spaces for exiled journalists to connect, collaborate, and continue their work despite repression in their home countries. It argues that exile journalism is growing due to increasing threats to press freedom, while also creating new opportunities for global reach and cross-border reporting.

This portrait is about the media platform Amal, which is produced by refugee and exiled journalists in Germany and provides news in languages like Arabic, Persian, and Ukrainian. It shows how these journalists, often unable to work in traditional media due to language barriers, find new opportunities to continue their profession and serve migrant communities.

Media makers forced into exile share candid insights on continuing independent work from abroad in this ASC MediaRisk panel discussion. Contributors reflect on safety challenges, digital threats, audience engagement and sustaining journalistic identity while displaced. Their perspectives highlight resilience and the complex realities of reporting beyond borders.

Paraguayan journalist Jazmín Acuña, co-founder of El Surtidor, reflects on building impactful journalism in challenging environments. She discusses how independent media navigate political pressure, engage audiences and measure real-world impact. Her insights highlight how journalists across Latin America adapt their work under constraints that often push reporters toward exile or cross-border collaboration.

Authoritarian repression is forcing civic actors out of their countries, yet the support available to continue their work from abroad remains limited and inconsistent. This analysis argues for a comprehensive, systematic framework to help relocated civil society leaders maintain influence, access funding and navigate digital and legal barriers as they work overseas.

Salvadoran journalist Carlos Dada — co‑founder and editor‑in‑chief of El Faro, now operating in exile due to repression in El Salvador — delivered the 2026 Reuters Memorial Lecture on “Journalism as Resistance.” He reflects on how independent reporting becomes an act of defiance under dictatorship, the challenges exiled newsrooms face, and the vital role of courageous journalism worldwide.

New News CN is a solo independent news outlet launched amid China’s tightening press environment. Its founder – operating largely from outside the firewall – aims to carve out an independent Chinese‑language voice, reporting on human rights struggles and censorship while navigating severe restrictions that have forced many journalists into exile or freelance work.

This Coda Story feature shares four powerful accounts of journalists forced into exile from Venezuela, Russia, Cuba and Afghanistan, showing how repression and censorship uproot reporters and reshape their work. Despite separation from home, they continue to report – adapting methods and confronting the personal costs of exile and resilience.

Myanmar‑focused outlet People’s Spring – launched in exile after the 2021 coup – has found that digital platforms can be a viable revenue source even under challenging conditions. By mid‑2025, income from Facebook, YouTube and audience membership helped cover about half its operating costs, offering a rare model of financial resilience for independent media in exile.

This first‑person account follows a journalist with a disability as they build an independent media project in exile, navigating barriers to access, technology and audience engagement. It highlights how physical and structural challenges intersect with repression and displacement, offering insight into resilience, innovation and inclusion among exiled media practitioners.

The Cuban government has blocked independent news outlet El Toque, further shrinking information space for citizens already cut off from uncensored reporting. The move highlights ongoing efforts by authorities to suppress critical journalism, deepen digital censorship, and limit access to diverse sources – complicating efforts by exiled and independent Cuban journalists to reach audiences.

In Costa Rica’s capital San José, a hidden TV station called Nicaragua Actual is broadcasting news aimed at audiences inside Nicaragua, where independent reporting is widely suppressed. Operating discreetly from exile, its team produces and distributes content to counter state censorship and provide alternative information to people facing media repression at home.

This Reuters Institute report shows how Cuban journalists based abroad continue covering their homeland despite strict censorship and information blackouts. Through remote sourcing, social media, clandestine networks and verification techniques, exiled reporters work to pierce state control and deliver news to audiences inside and outside Cuba, revealing both innovation and the obstacles they face.

Journalist Alma Guillermoprieto reflects on turning conflict and upheaval into lasting narratives, drawing on decades reporting across Latin America and beyond. She speaks to the emotional terrain of covering repression, displacement and forced migration, and how deep immersion and empathy help independent and exiled journalists connect fractured moments into cohesive, meaningful journalism.

This comprehensive guide from Deutsche Welle Akademie explores strategies for exiled media outlets to remain financially viable, true to their mission and influential. Drawing on examples and expert advice, it covers sustainability models, audience engagement, digital tools, safety and collaboration – offering a practical roadmap for independent journalism operating from abroad.

Earlier this month Donald Trump launched military strikes on Venezuela and captured President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. The ousting of Maduro was a momentous event for millions of Venezuelans, who have gone through hunger, political repression, a painful economic collapse and a massive exodus in the past two decades.

Luz Mely Reyes, a Venezuelan journalist in exile and director of the digital media outlet Efecto Cocuyo, quickly learned what was happening. She contacted a group of colleagues, also in exile, via text message, and within minutes they organized a live broadcast to inform their compatriots about what was going on in Venezuela.

The rollback of press freedom programs, as well as the loss of some funding from European nations refocused on security closer to home, has left exiled media outlets from Myanmar, Belarus, Afghanistan, South Sudan, and other countries that lack a free press facing the same question: When decades-long donors pull out, what comes next?