Independent Media in Exile: A Baseline Consultation

"Repression of a free media is increasing worldwide....Many journalists have been forced to flee their countries and operate from exile in order to carry on their work as reporters."

From InterMedia Research and Consulting Europe (IRCE) and The FOJO Media Institute (FOJO), this in-depth report explores the challenges and training needs of exiled media. It marked the start of a 3-year project in which FOJO partnered with 14 independent exile media organisations that broadcast and publish uncensored news to audiences in Iran, Myanmar, Sudan, Ethiopia, Belarus, Zimbabwe, Tibet, Uzbekistan, Eritrea, Syria, and Zambia. With funding from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), FOJO designed and delivered training interventions to strengthen the organisational capacity of their partners in exile beginning in December 2012. This report synthesises the findings of the baseline consultation with the 14 media organisations, designed to assess their common challenges and perceived training needs, in order to inform the design and delivery of FOJO's training interventions and provide a benchmark for monitoring impact and effectiveness (an endline study was planned for 2015). The findings from the report may have relevance to donors, implementing organisations, journalist trainers, and other stakeholders working in the exile media or broader media for development sector.

Conducted between October and December 2012, this baseline consultation comprised 3 strands of data collection, namely a pre-interview online questionnaire, in-depth interviews, and a follow-up email questionnaire. All baseline consultation participants were selected on the basis of being able to represent their organisational viewpoint. Consequently, the majority hold senior positions such as director, media house manager, and editor-in-chief. The report presents 20 key findings of the baseline consultation, which are grouped into these broad areas:

1. Summary of baseline indicators - They include: knowledge of relevant training opportunities; training as a high priority; system for seniors to train juniors; formalised financial strategy; ability to deliver financial strategy; prediction of scale-back in next 2 years; strength of support network; perceived donor knowledge of challenges; and perceived donor knowledge of training needs.
2. Operating environment:
   • The majority of participating exile media organisations experience hostility against independent media in their "country of exile" (the country that an organisation or journalist has been exiled from or, when established elsewhere, forms the focus of its media activities), which can take the form of: lack of press freedom, political crisis, conflict, and corruption; state repression and undermining of independent media through censorship, surveillance, and physical and cyber-attacks; and lack of journalistic standards, ethics, and independence in state and independent media.
   • The media organisations share a common set of core values rooted in their desire to influence the future of their "country of exile" through audience engagement. They wish to: contribute to the democratisation of the media and politics, hold decision makers accountable, foster an informed citizenry and debate, and raise media standards by acting as beacons of best practice.
   • Many of the organisations wish to return (or relocate) to their "country of exile".
3. Training: There is a high level of ambiguity about what training opportunities are available to help them strengthen their institutional journalism capacity. Still, despite this low level of knowledge of training opportunities and a lack of proactive pursuit of such opportunities, the awareness of organisations that offer such training seems to be strong. Despite the majority emphasising the importance of training for addressing their organisational challenges, collectively, there is a low level of engagement in and commitment to training activities. Key barriers to engaging in training activities include a lack of time and money to apply for training and a lack of systems in place for internal training and mentoring. Building technical capacity in core areas of journalism and social and multi-media, often at the individual rather than organisational level, emerged as core stated training needs. The 3 top challenges expressed by participating independent exile media organisations related to staffing (for example, retention and recruitment), income generation (donor funding and alternative revenue streams), and security (both cyber and physical). There appears to be little overlap between the expressly articulated organisational challenges and training needs, which illustrates the need for training providers to understand and also respond to key organisational challenges, often not expressed as training needs.
4. Financial: Approximately half of the participating organisations currently rely exclusively on donor funding. There are mixed feelings among the organisations about the level of perceived donor knowledge of their challenges and training needs, with some suggesting a "disconnect" between donors and independent exile media. Only one-fifth of the organisations do not predict having to scale back their activities in the next 2 years due to reduced funding.
5. Distance management and staffing: The majority of the organisations operate as "virtual networks", with multiple premises and diffuse organisational structures rather than from traditional newsrooms. As one of the interviewees noted: "Being a virtual network makes it sometimes more difficult to organise yourself. You need a lot more good coordination and really also inter-cultural coordination because we are all coming also from different backgrounds. You really need to have good trust and community spirit which is harder to establish when you operate virtually." Staff recruitment and retention, workload and time management, awareness of media standards and a reliance on freelance and volunteer staff are the key challenges for maintaining and building professional capacity among participating independent exile media organisations.
6. Audience engagement and reach: Youth, the rural economically poor and marginalised, and politicians and civil society members are key intended audiences for most of the organisations. They engage their audiences through "serious" news stories on subjects such as politics, religion, business and current affairs, as well as reach out to youth with more light-hearted content (music, sports, entertainment, and culture). However, the majority of the organisations have a limited understanding of the composition, information needs and preferences of their intended audiences. The most common audience feedback mechanisms, mentioned by approximately two-thirds of the organisations, were Facebook, Twitter, Audioboo, Google+, etc. Other mechanisms used to gauge audience engagement and reach include website analytics, radio talk-back shows, and newspaper comments sections. Approximately one-quarter cited examples of outsourcing or conducting their own in-house audience research - typically through online and paper surveys.
7. Networks and support systems: There is a lack of coordinated engagement among the organisations. Those that do have established relationships with other exile media organisations tended to have been introduced at events organised by donors or training providers, highlighting the value of these events. About half of the organisations would like a more coordinated and integrated network. A number of of them collaborate with non-exile media organisations, for example, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and civil society organisations (CSOs), to achieve shared goals.

"In a time of significant challenges for freedom of the press around the world, strengthening the organisational capacity of organisations operating in difficult conditions to continue providing balanced and high quality journalism is of growing importance to a wide range of funders, training providers and other stakeholders operating in the media for development sector. By critically reflecting on the wider themes presented in this report in the context of independent media in exile, this report hopes to stimulate debate and encourage FOJO and others to ask important questions about how they design and deliver journalism training, both now and in the future."