FLED's Assessment Report on Exiled Media in Latin America

In Latin America, more and more journalists are working far from their home territories. This is not a choice or a temporary pause, but a forced action to protect their lives and physical safety. This is documented in the Assessment Report on the Current Situation of Exiled Media in Latin America, produced by the Foundation for Freedom of Expression and Democracy (FLED), a partner of Internews.

The report shows that forced displacement has become a permanent feature of the region’s information ecosystem and warns that this phenomenon represents “one of the most serious expressions of democratic deterioration in the region.”

It emphasizes that, in several countries, exile is the only way for journalists to keep reporting. In Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Cuba, “the return of journalists is uncertain or impossible under the current political regimes,” while in El Salvador, Guatemala, Ecuador, and Haiti, leaving the country “tends to become prolonged due to persistent violence and criminalization,” the report notes.

It adds that the reasons behind these displacements include state persecution, criminalization, surveillance, censorship, and threats from organized crime. In Nicaragua, for example, the report documents “the near-total dismantling of the independent press, with eleven departments turned into information deserts.”

Regarding Venezuela, it highlights the closure of “405 media outlets in the last two decades.” The situation in Cuba is also critical: “the media landscape is completely state-controlled,” and practices of harassment—detentions, interrogations, and surveillance—keep dozens of journalists outside the country, according to FLED.

Exile marked by precarity and uncertainty

The report details that exile brings “deep economic, legal, psychosocial, labor, and security challenges,” all of which shape journalists’ ability to continue their work. Added to this is the impact of shrinking international funding.

FLED found that only 30% of exiled journalists continue working in media; 41% have had to abandon the profession entirely, and the remaining 20% rely on freelance work, a model generally marked by insecurity. Despite this, the report highlights that exiled media organizations have found ways to sustain themselves through innovation, collaborative partnerships, and new storytelling formats. These practices, it notes, show that journalists “are not merely victims of authoritarian contexts, but actors with the capacity for autonomy, adaptation, and resilience.”

The analysis concludes that the regional ecosystem needs to strengthen its support mechanisms: digital protection, legal assistance, psychosocial care, and sustainability models suited to the realities of exile.

For FLED, “keeping journalism alive in exile is equivalent to preserving one of the last spaces for freedom, memory, and truth in countries where democracy has been dismantled.”

https://fled.ong/diagnostico-de-periodistas-en-el-exilio-elaborado-por-fled-detalla-la-precariedad-y-la-resiliencia-de-los-medios-en-america-latina/