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Journalists who conduct investigative reporting on crime and corruption and provide coverage on violent protests or wars, are among the most vulnerable to violent attacks and threats.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 91 journalists and media workers were killed in 2023. Countless more suffered kidnappings, online harassment, DDos attacks, lawsuits, and imprisonment for their journalistic work.
Among the media in the directory, nearly 50% have been subject to threats or violence because of their reporting, and many said intimidation and physical threats had led to self-censorship or to publishing their stories anonymously.
In many countries, lawsuits are increasingly used by governments and big business to try to censor journalists, stop their reporting, and distract them with lengthy and expensive legal challenges. In other countries, governments have resorted to initiating seemingly endless tax audits that strain small teams and distract them from their journalistic mission.
Digital attacks are an increasingly common form of censorship and retaliation, especially in countries with the worst press freedom scores. Many of the media leaders have reported suffering cyberattacks, especially for investigative news coverage. Others have had their email and social media accounts hacked, been subjected to digital smear campaigns, and other kinds of threats. In authoritarian countries like Venezuela, the government has blocked the domains of several independent digital news sites making them impossible to reach from within the country without the use of a VPN.
Independent public interest media, especially those that do investigative journalism, face numerous threats, jeopardizing not only the well-being of journalists, but the very foundation of a free and informed society.
Governmental interference and pressure on the media have become common in many countries, especially in Central and Eastern Europe and parts of the Latin American region.
The manipulation of laws as a tool to silence the press is frequent, reaching a particularly harsh intensity in authoritarian regimes, such as Venezuela, where many media outlets have been taken over by the government or shut down. The government of Nicaragua has established legal restrictions on outside funding for journalism to cut off support to independent media.
In Peru this year, veteran journalist Gustavo Gorriti, the founder of the investigative journalism site IDL Reporteros, faced a criminal investigation in a bizarrely framed bribery case.
“Of course it’s not true,” one of the prosecutors cited, José Domingo Pérez, told The Associated Press. “This is a blatant attempt to muzzle one of Latin America’s best investigative reporters, the outlet that he has founded, and, by extension, any journalist who would dare to speak truth to power in Latin America”
Even in ostensibly stable democracies, the threat of organized crime looms large, creating a climate of fear for media coverage in countries such as Mexico, Colombia, and more recently, Ecuador. In these nations, many journalists have had to adopt expensive security measures, and some have been forced to flee their country to escape imminent threats.
Political corruption, and the economic crisis that often accompany them, contribute to erosion of advertising markets and the general instability of media business models.
Impunity adds another layer of despair as so many cases that involve the kidnapping and murder of journalists go unsolved. UNESCO data reveals that between 2006 and 2021, 313 journalists were killed in Latin America and the Caribbean, with only 68 cases resolved –a staggering 78 percent impunity rate. Three countries –Haiti, Mexico, and Brazil– rank among the worst 10 on the Committee to Protect Journalists’ Global Impunity Index, highlighting the prevalence of journalist murders that have never been solved.
Although there is no official record of the number of journalists in exile, numerous accounts confirm that hundreds of journalists have fled their home countries and are now working remotely, primarily in Costa Rica, Mexico, Spain, and the U.S. In Europe, most of the journalists living in exile come from Belarus, Azerbaijan, and Russia.
Journalists in Russia and Belarus face the threat of arrest and imprisonment, especially those who have been critical of the government, and many have had to flee into exile in Europe. Illegal surveillance, abusive legal demands, and other forms of intimidation towards the media have also been reported. In Turkey, at least 18 journalists were detained in 2023.
In Ukraine, there were 11 alerts reporting physical attacks and threats against the safety and integrity of journalists in 2023. Two journalists, Bohdan Bitik and Arman Soldin, died while reporting on the war. In France, Italy, and Serbia, there were reports of physical assaults, detentions, and other attacks on journalists last year.
These threats show that press freedom and journalist safety remain significant challenges in several European countries, especially those with authoritarian governments or those that are currently involved in a conflict. Intimidation, detention, and physical violence against media professionals represent serious threats to the practice of independent journalism in this region.
In our research for the Project Oasis directory, we’ve documented more than 50 cases where media leaders or their team members have had to go into exile, and we only recently began tracking this number.
In Latin America, the Fundación por la Libertad de Expresión y Democracia (FLED) reports that as of October 2023, there were 223 Nicaraguan journalists in exile, most of them fled to Costa Rica in the last two years.
Journalists in exile have left Cuba, Venezuela, and more recently Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. Nicaragua’s government, long criticized for its capture and repression of the media, has passed increasingly restrictive laws in recent years, and threatened scores of journalists with incarceration for their reporting, or for receiving funding for supporters outside the country.
Of the 21 media organizations from Nicaragua that were in the Project Oasis directory when we started analyzing data a few months before finishing this report, 20 told us that one of their journalists, editors or founders has had to flee the country. The 21st on that list has had to close and we had to remove it from the directory. In some cases, nearly the entire team had to go into exile, leaving them scrambling to operate virtual organizations with limited resources to continue their reporting.
This trend is compounded by the increasing threats from drug traffickers and other organized crime organizations, which have also led journalists to seek refuge in other countries. Notably, this has been a growing problem for journalists in Ecuador, where threats from drug traffickers have increased dramatically over the last three years.
In El Salvador and Guatemala, journalists have been forced to flee in order to avoid detention or incarceration. From 2020 to 2024, there were many reports about open persecution of journalists, judges, and prosecutors committed to combating corruption, especially in Guatemala.
Journalists in exile face serious challenges that sap their limited financial resources. In addition to investing in expensive security measures for their teams in their home countries, they must also find ways to support themselves in countries that have higher costs of living. This puts a significant strain on media sustainability, as well as on their emotional and psychological well-being.
Assessing media viability is not a simple task, and one of the many challenges is that market conditions vary dramatically. As we consider how to define success, measure sustainability, or support organizational resilience and editorial independence, we must put these metrics in the appropriate context.
To put these findings in better context, we include a sample of the countries in this report, organized in the press freedom ranking from Reporters without Borders here.
Even the most successful businesses often suffer unpredictable revenue swings that can lead to downsizing and layoffs. Despite their relatively small teams, media in the Project Oasis directory have also had to face tough decisions and make cuts.
Malvestida, a Mexican media outlet born in 2016, has gained national attention as a leading voice on gender issues. Its rapid growth can be attributed to the confluence of the global #MeToo feminist movement and the digital boom triggered by the pandemic.
Alejandra Higareda, founder and director of Malvestida, said their audience had grown steadily through social media and other channels until, in 2023, Meta’s algorithm modifications to Instagram resulted in a drastic drop in traffic. “2023 was a tough year for us,” Higareda said, adding, the resulting loss in revenue forced them to downsize and cut some of their team members.
Despite these setbacks, Malvestida’s innovative team, which often held up as a model for other media organizations, has persevered. They are now actively rebuilding their business model, shifting from an advertising-centric strategy to creating branded content for brands aligned with Malvestida’s values.
Drawing on their own experience, they developed a consulting service that provides clients with content services, including videos, illustrations, articles, and multimedia pieces, tailored to resonate with Malvestida’s audience. They’ve attracted an impressive client list that includes Reebok, Vans, Facebook, GAIA, Ben & Frank, Bumble, Disney, and Nike. In addition to branded content creation, Malvestida has expanded its offerings to include consulting and workshop services focused on gender-conscious marketing.
Another example is Lado B, a digital news organization that was founded by journalists in 2011 in Puebla, Mexico, with the intention of showing the “other side” of the story, which doesn’t always get covered in traditional media.
The local news site was started by award-winning journalists, Ernesto Aroche and Mely Arellano, and it has been widely praised for its policy of transparency into how editorial choices are made, as well as covering issues of gender, sexual diversity and culture.
The pandemic hit them hard, and when grant support dropped off as the worst of the COVID epidemic subsided, they were forced to make a difficult decision: continue operations until they depleted their reserves, or use their remaining funds to offer severance packages and lay off most of their tem.
After a difficult process of layoffs and restructuring, the two founders were able to get their news organization back on track, but with a much smaller team.
“In 2022, we had to lay off 13 out of the 15 contributors at Lado B who had been working with us for 11 years,” said Arellano. “Recovering emotionally and personally after the pandemic was not easy. Everything affected fundraising, and we decided it was best to take a break and then come back.”
Despite the setback, the small reporting team continues to win awards for the stories they publish on the Lado B site, as well as freelance reporting for other news organizations in Mexico.
In the ever-evolving digital world where most news and information is currently consumed, media leaders must continually invest in technology just to stay relevant. Although there are some outstanding examples of tech innovation by media ventures in all three regions, for the most part, publishers that produce content in languages other than English don’t have the same access to tech tools and support as their English-language counterparts.
Many software programs are only available in English, especially when they are initially launched. Even if their developers can understand English to use the software, if the consumer-facing interface is only in English, media that publish in other languages can’t use it on their websites.
This forces many media organizations to settle for less effective or efficient technology solutions, or to invest in expensive solutions they create themselves. It’s also harder for non English-speakers to learn about new technology when instructions and help files are only provided in English.
The high cost of technology can also put a strain on media with small budgets. However, in some cases, nonprofit discounts from organizations like TechSoup, which negotiates discounts for nonprofits, are helping.
On average, nearly 10% of their teams are dedicated to managing the website and other technology needs of their organizations. Those that have been able to invest in technology say they are better able to optimize resources that can be key to increasing their revenue.
Such is the case of Cuestión Pública, an independent digital-native media outlet founded by investigative and data journalists Diana Salinas, Claudia Báez, and David Tarazona in Colombia. They focus on investigating government and corporate bank transactions and how public funds are being spent. They also cover other public interest topics such as health, labor, indigenous and Afro communities, rural land tenure conflicts, political alliances, and other issues related to the Colombian post-conflict period.
Cuestión Pública promotes open data systems, digital culture, and technology to expose corruption and promote transparency. In their words, they innovate to enhance counter-power investigative journalism.
“For us, technology has always been a tool that has helped us optimize processes, speed them up, and delve deeper when we do investigative journalism,” said Claudia Baez. “We have always integrated technology into our investigative and data journalism processes. We allocate a specific budget to the tools we use to develop and implement our research methodology, which obviously covers database subscriptions and advanced tools, enabling us to conduct investigative journalism faster, deeper, and more accurately.”
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