In this conversation, we explore how Echo rebuilt its audience after exile, how offline encounters can support sustainable journalism, and what lessons its experience offers for independent media seeking new models of sustainability, engagement, and growth.
In the second edition of our new interview series “Reinventing Revenue,” Cuban exiled outlet elTOQUE talks about about how utility-driven journalism, data tools, and audience trust can evolve into sustainable revenue models, and how to maintain a “church–state” separation between commercial and editorial operations.
How do exiled media outlets survive when traditional media business models no longer work? Our new interview series “Reinventing Revenue” explores how independent journalism adapts through new formats, services, and community spaces. In our first edition, Belarusian exiled outlet Reform.news explains why its next project is a bar in Warsaw.
To better understand the complexities of impact and the perspectives shaping the community, we draw on insights from conversations at the Exile Media Forum 2025 and the International Journalism Festival 2026. Together with representatives of exiled media from all over the world, we moved beyond a narrow focus on reach toward a broader perspective: one in which impact is not a single outcome, but a set of interconnected dimensions.
By now it is clear that the shock of the 2025 US funding cuts has not faded. Its effects continue to shape independent and exiled media in 2026.
That leaves organizations like ours with an uncomfortable question: How do we distribute less funding without shrinking the field to a handful of surviving exiled media outlets and risking a quiet desertification of exiled media landscapes?
In 2025, the international landscape for independent media shifted dramatically. The closure of key USAID programs removed vital lifelines for many exiled outlets, while overall investment in civil society continued to decline. At the same time, political pressures on independent media grew across multiple countries. Together, these developments reshaped how information is produced, funded, and accessed worldwide.
A botnet that spreads false claims across multiple languages, fake copy accounts mimicking top Western media, AI-trained on manipulated datasets to twist narratives – these are just a few of the extraordinary manipulation efforts uncovered by exiled media outlets.
RSF Germany published our article on how exiled media shape international reporting in a press release.
How does the Kremlin infiltrate Europe’s information sphere to sway elections and shape public opinion? Where did fugitive Wirecard executive Jan Marsalek vanish to? Why are many of China’s cities sinking? Without exiled media, you probably wouldn’t know.
On October 16th, the Russian Ministry of Justice listed JX Fund as an “undesirable organisation”. This designation prohibits any activity by JX Fund in the Russian Federation and criminalises cooperation with the organisation under Russian law.
Maral Jekta will take over as managing director of JX Fund at the start of October 1st. She is succeeding Penelope Winterhager, who has successfully managed the fund since its foundation in spring 2022.
Mit Start zum 1. Oktober übernimmt Maral Jekta die Geschäftsführung des JX Fund. Sie folgt auf Penelope Winterhager, die den Fund seit dessen Gründung im Frühjahr 2022 erfolgreich aufgebaut und geleitet hat.
The accelerating decline of democratic structures is triggering a global exodus of journalists from authoritarian countries. Exiled media are now, in many regions, the last institutions capable of documenting increasing autocratization and making democratic backsliding visible.
Der zunehmende Verfall demokratischer Strukturen zieht einen globalen Exodus von Journalist:innen aus autoritär regierten Ländern nach sich. Inzwischen sind Exilmedien in vielen Regionen die letzten Instanzen, die die zunehmende Autokratisierung in ihren Herkunftsländern sichtbar machen und den demokratischen Rückschritt dokumentieren.
For three years, we’ve supported exiled media outlets from countries where independent journalism is no longer possible due to repression, persecution, and censorship. In a review article, we share key insights that have shaped our work and continue to guide our response to the evolving needs of exiled media.
In times of shifting geopolitics and increasing challenges for independent journalism, supporting exiled media is more crucial than ever. Combining regional context, audience data, and nuanced insights, our country profiles on Afghanistan, Belarus, Nicaragua, Russia, and Syria highlight the critical role of exiled journalism in safeguarding truth under repressive regimes.
Whether a medium can survive in exile depends in most cases not only on whether it keeps up good work outside the country, but also on whether it is worthy of support in the eyes of large funding institutions. But who determines when a medium is worthy of support? What criteria can be used to evaluate exiled media and how can comparability be established without gray areas getting lost in the process?
A new report by Thomson Reuters Foundation and The Fix analyzes the needs and support provided to Belarusian and Russian independent media in exile across Czechia, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. The report highlights assesses how the needs and challenges, as well as the support provided, have evolved for these exiled media over time.
With the increasing monopolization of information infrastructures on one side and targeted disinformation campaigns and propaganda by authoritarian regimes on the other, facts have become lonely things. However, for many exiled media outlets, this isn’t breaking news but rather a reality they have already adapted to. The constant need to innovate in response to new circumstances has given rise to unconventional business models.
When the Taliban took power three years ago, the previously thriving Afghan media landscape collapsed. Many journalists were forced to leave the country and now work remotely. Others have stayed and continue their work despite all dangers. How do editorial teams in exile deal with the challenge of accessing sources on the ground?
Media are sometimes forced to set up media companies in other countries because they cannot operate in their home countries, for example due to restrictive laws. Our Legal Navigator provides an overview of the legal framework for setting up a media company in selected countries that has been reviewed by specialist lawyers.
The Media Incubator Program, tailored to support exiled Afghan journalists in Germany, aims to provide comprehensive assistance in developing new media projects. The program offers training, guidance, financial assistance, and helps fostering connections with established media organizations. Three media projects by exiled Afghan journalists have been selected to participate.
For many Russian-speaking exiled journalists, the co-working space ‘MiCT Roof’ became a safe haven in Berlin last year. The aim of the co-working space is to enable exiled media professionals to continue their work while also creating networking opportunities with German media outlets, production companies, foundations, and politics. Now, JX Fund again supports the continuation of the project.
Christophe Deloire, who negotiated to free imprisoned journalists around the world and offered refuge to reporters under threat as the head of Reporters Without Borders since 2012, passed away on June 8 after battling a sudden and aggressive cancer.
Exiled journalists are fighting to maintain independent reporting from and in their countries of origin. On this years’ International Press Freedom Day, JX Fund provides an insight into the exiled media scenes from Afghanistan, Belarus and Russia.
Since its foundation, JX Fund has supported 55 independent media in exile from Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. Around 1,600 media professionals in exile have benefited from this work. JX Fund focuses on unbureaucratic and needs-oriented support to enable independent media in exile to operate sustainably.
At the two-day symposium “Rebuilding Afghan Media in Exile”, JX Fund brought together around 120 exiled media professionals from Afghanistan to develop strategies for the successful continuation of their independent journalistic work.
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, 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 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.
JX Fund was founded in April 2022 to help journalists successfully continue their work in exile after fleeing war and crisis zones. Since then, 44 exiled media in eight countries have been supported in rebuilding their editorial structures in exile.
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, JX Fund and Mass Media Defence Center from Voronezh have now launched the information platform Shpargalka.
Since its founding, 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 round of funding, a total of 7 Russian and Belarusian media outlets were selected , including two prominent investigative journalism projects.
Reporters without Borders (RSF) together with the Rudolf Augstein Foundation and the Schöpflin Foundation launch 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.