This report offers four recommendations for addressing some of the complex challenges of independent media in exile:

• Donor groups should expand and formalize coordination of their exile-media support. This could solve some of the bureaucratic issues that have caused problems and improve the effectiveness of funding by targeting it more holistically. Donors should also look for more creative approaches, such as a small-grants program with multiyear funding.
• Organizations providing international media training should actively seek to train exile-media journalists. Training is badly needed, but is not widely enough available–sometimes due to policies of the training organizations themselves.
• A formal international association of exile media should be established. There are professional industry associations nearly everywhere in the world, at all levels of the media, and they provide invaluable services to their members. For this community of journalists, spread far and wide around the world, it could be a godsend.
• The exile-media organizations themselves should take some of the initiative. There’s no doubt that they are strapped for time and resources. But they should take advantage of the network they have gradually been building in recent years, and make their voices heard about what would help them the most.

Author: Bill Ristow