At this year’s Exile Media Forum in Hamburg, exiled journalists from around the world shared their experiences and strategies for continuing their work in exile. Although the reasons they have had to go into exile are as different as the conditions in their respective countries of residence, the challenges they face are often very similar.
Two years ago, the Taliban took power in Afghanistan. This has led to a systematic dismantling of civil rights and a stricter censorship of the media. More than half of the 547 media outlets that were registered in 2021 have since ceased to exist. But exiled media from Afghanistan bring a glimmer of hope. From October on, the JX Fund will start supporting Afghan media and media professionals in exile.
Berlin is becoming an important place for independent media in exile. These media and journalists need places where they can continue their work efficiently and in exchange with colleagues. With the support of the JX Fund, three co-working and co-production spaces are now being created in Berlin.
How does research work when you can no longer enter the country you are investigating due to the threat of politically motivated persecution? The panel “Staying close without being on site – research methods of Russian journalists in exile” discussed this question from three very different perspectives.
Together with The Fix and the Centre for Media Studies of the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga, the JX Fund has published the study “Rebuilding Russian Media in Exile – Successes, Challenges and the Road Ahead,” which investigates the current state of Russian media in exile, and how the cities of Amsterdam, Berlin, Tbilisi, and Riga have become real magnets for exiled Russian journalists.
Read the full study
The JX Fund was founded in April 2022. Since then, we have been able to support 44 media outlets in exile in eight countries with over 900 journalists profiting from our work.
Over the past six months, Russia has adopted a series of draconian anti-press laws. In order to help threatened media professionals in Russia to choose a country of exile suitable for them and their needs, the JX Fund – European Fund for Journalism in Exile together with the Mass Media Defence Center from Voronezh has now launched the information platform Shpargalka | Exile.
Since its founding, the JX Fund has supported over 15 media outlets in exile in over 7 different countries, as well as facilitating the expansion of a media hub in Georgia. In the most recent of the three rounds of funding to date, which took place in mid-June, a total of 7 Russian and Belarusian media outlets were selected for funding, including two prominent investigative journalism projects.
Reporters without Borders (RSF) together with the Rudolf Augstein Foundation and the Schöpflin Foundation launch the JX Fund for journalism in exile, which is intended to help media workers quickly and flexibly, to enable them to continue their work immediately after they have fled war and crisis zones.