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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.
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.
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.
Turkey is slipping fast down the Reporters without Borders (RSF) ‘s World Press Freedom Index. The country is now ranked 159th out of 180. But while some journalists languish in prison, many more, have been forced to leave the country. Their destinations range from Greece and Switzerland to other European countries, as well as neighbouring regions such as Armenia and the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.
Founded in 2016 by young civil society members in Azerbaijan, Abzas Media was created to report on issues that are often ignored or suppressed in state-controlled media, including corruption, misuse of public resources, and human rights violations. Independent journalism in the country has been put under severe pressure, yet Abzas Media has continued reporting from exile, driven by the belief that independent journalism is as essential as ever.
Foreign intelligence agencies are using spyware in Germany to target primarily activists and journalists critical of authoritarian governments, but increasingly also members of parliament like Daniel Freund. Beyond infringing on the individual fundamental rights of affected individuals, they thereby also threaten civil society, freedom of the press, and democracy.
Thomas Erdbrink’s documentary series Onze man bij de vijand about Russia primarily features Russians who support president Putin and the war in Ukraine, says journalist Pavel Kanygin, who fled his country and now lives in Amsterdam. That’s certainly not the whole story, he emphasizes in this op-ed.
Censorship, recruitment attempts by the FSB, propaganda in universities, forced emigration, anonymous bylines, and financial hardship are among the manage challenges that young Russian journalists face today. Vazhnye Istory spoke with several early-career journalists about the realities of working in the profession in Russia today.
This paper draws on 68 interviews and a global survey of 177 media outlets and media support organizations to chart the financial, sectoral, and political impacts of terminating most U.S. support for independent media. We find the following: The sudden, ill-planned termination of U.S. governmental support caused harm and waste.
Cyber censorship is quickly becoming a weapon of choice for Turkish authorities looking to silence journalists in exile. At least five reporters have been targeted online, notably by having their social media accounts censored in Türkiye. Four of them are facing potential prison sentences as they are unjustly prosecuted — some of these lawsuits stretching over a decade.