Two-thirds of journalists in exile change their profession

Work in exile does not mean a hap­py end  –  it makes inequal­i­ties deep­er. Fur­ther­more, two-thirds of jour­nal­ists in exile leave the pro­fes­sion, while work­ing in edi­to­r­i­al offices tend to be more sus­tain­able. Researcher and Pro­fes­sor at Salzburg Uni­ver­si­ty, Hanan Badr, dis­cuss­es the col­lec­tive expe­ri­ence of jour­nal­ists in exile.

Hanan Badr. Pho­to: Uni­ver­sität Salzburg

Different countries had overlapping experience

Study­ing jour­nal­ism in Cairo but work­ing in an aca­d­e­m­ic envi­ron­ment in the EU – this is a brief descrip­tion of Hanan Badr’s career. She is a pro­fes­sor at Salzburg Uni­ver­si­ty in Aus­tria and heads the divi­sion of Pub­lic Spheres and Inequal­i­ty.

Her inter­est in jour­nal­ism research emerged dur­ing the unsuc­cess­ful Arab upris­ings in 2010–2011, “when in the Arab region – in Tunisia, Libya, Syr­ia – there was a push for democ­ra­ti­za­tion and we know that they failed. This is part of my per­son­al his­to­ry, when I became inter­est­ed in research,” says Hanan Badr.

Through inter­views with media work­ers, she stud­ies jour­nal­ism in exile and notes that its scope has become unprece­dent­ed world­wide. Based on 90 Eng­lish-lan­guage ques­tion­naires and 50 inter­views, the pro­fes­sor pub­lished on 2024 study titled “Exiled Jour­nal­ist Com­mu­ni­ties in Ger­many,” one of a few works on the top­ic.

Respon­dents were from three regions: East­ern Europe, West­ern and Cen­tral Asia, and the Arab region, with Belaru­sians mak­ing up only 7%. Why? “The major­i­ty of [the Belaru­sian] com­mu­ni­ty does not live in Ger­many – but there are many over­lap­ping between dif­fer­ent com­mu­ni­ties in exile,” says Hanan Badr about their col­lec­tive expe­ri­ence.

 An authoritarian backsliding 

The phe­nom­e­non of jour­nal­ism in exile is not new, Hanan Badr explains, and it exist­ed even dur­ing the time of the Roman Empire. Its scale increased over 10–15 years, but the struc­ture of aid for jour­nal­ists in exile is devel­op­ing more slow­ly. Accord­ing to reports from the Com­mit­tee to Pro­tect Jour­nal­ists and oth­er orga­ni­za­tions, aid to jour­nal­ists in exile increased by 227% between 2020 and 2023, Hanan Badr notes.

“I con­duct­ed inter­views with media rep­re­sen­ta­tives, pol­i­cy­mak­ers, jour­nal­ists. One of them said that the appli­ca­tions from jour­nal­ists increased five­fold over the past three years. Of course, fund­ing did not increase five­fold,” she says.

Work­ing con­di­tions for jour­nal­ists have also wors­ened in recent years – this can be seen on the press free­dom map made by the inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tion “Reporters With­out Bor­ders”. “The Press Free­dom Map in 2025 by ‘Reporters With­out Bor­ders’ visu­al­ly shows the author­i­tar­i­an back­slid­ing in coun­tries like Rus­sia, Belarus, Turkey, but also my coun­try of ori­gin Egypt which is in red. And even coun­tries […] like the Unit­ed States,” says Hanan Badr.

Press Free­dom Map, 2025, “Reporters With­out Bor­ders”

The geog­ra­phy of jour­nal­ists in exile is vis­i­ble on anoth­er map from the same orga­ni­za­tion. How­ev­er, the researcher adds: it is incom­plete: “There are very many undoc­u­ment­ed cas­es”. For instance, not all jour­nal­ists speak Eng­lish or French. Cas­es in Paris, where the orga­ni­za­tion is locat­ed, are well doc­u­ment­ed on the map, while move­ment to neigh­bour­ing coun­tries – often the first des­ti­na­tion – is poor­ly reflect­ed.

A map by “Reporters With­out Bor­ders” shows the move­ment of jour­nal­ists from coun­tries where they face pres­sure to North­ern and West­ern Europe and North Amer­i­ca. How­ev­er, it does not show that there are very many neigh­bor­ing coun­tries that became tem­po­rary refuge.

A famous journalist who no one knew

Some jour­nal­ists stay home and leave the pro­fes­sion, expect­ing to avoid per­se­cu­tion. Oth­ers are lim­it­ed by respon­si­bil­i­ties to care for chil­dren or oth­er rel­a­tives in the coun­try of ori­gin. By the way, the researcher notes, part of them are proud to be media pro­fes­sion­als, while oth­ers are equal­ly proud by call­ing them­selves activists.

“And some peo­ple, again, switch from one group to anoth­er. This is a thin line, such a vague­ly defined one,” says Hanan Badr.

The para­dox of exile is on being cho­sen for secu­ri­ty rea­sons – but it does­n’t mean a hap­py end. It leads to insta­bil­i­ty on oth­er lev­els. The main issue is not rent­ing a flat or find a school for chil­dren, but exis­tence itself – the pro­fes­sor quotes one of her inter­vie­wees. She stress­es: most jour­nal­ists in exile did not want to leave.

At the same time, some of them find good con­di­tions in a new place. “One of the respon­dents was a very famous Turk­ish jour­nal­ist and edi­tor. He real­ly received mul­ti­ple offers and open­ly shared with me whether he should go to Ger­many or France…,” says Hanan Badr.

But this is rather an excep­tion. Jour­nal­ists in exile often find them­selves on the periph­ery of their pro­fes­sion, even if they were celebri­ties at home, which caus­es stress and men­tal health issues. “I was once at a con­fer­ence, and a per­son entered, he was a very famous Afghan jour­nal­ist, and Afghan col­leagues went to greet him. But I did­n’t know him; in Ger­many, where the con­fer­ence was held, no one knew him at all,” says the researcher.

Lan­guage bar­ri­ers and relo­ca­tion lead to the loss of usu­al resources and audi­ences. Or, instead of an audi­ence in one coun­try, jour­nal­ists begin work­ing for sev­er­al, transna­tion­al­ly. The ques­tion of finan­cial via­bil­i­ty emerges, and relo­ca­tion makes deep­er inequal­i­ties relat­ed to gen­der, method of legal­iza­tion, and oth­ers. “Many peo­ple do not know what to do,” says the researcher.

Journalists in between temporary and permanent emigration

Time is a leit­mo­tif of work in exile: it is need­ed for emo­tion­al recov­ery and to heal the con­se­quences of tor­tures or deten­tion. Over time, peo­ple also face dilem­mas and nego­ti­a­tions with them­selves.

“They hes­i­tate between dif­fer­ent mind­sets: from ‘I did not want to detach myself from the resources and friends I had’ to ‘We are here to stay for­ev­er’,” says the pro­fes­sor.

A per­son may deny real­i­ty: while being locat­ed in exile, in his mind he is still at home, with his books and his love. A new per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al iden­ti­ty is built through con­fronting such dilem­mas and heal­ing after such a rup­ture. How­ev­er, the less a per­son achieves on sta­tus and pres­tige – the eas­i­er it is to leave it in the past, says the researcher, and she links this to age.

Over time, accord­ing to the research, 60–70% of jour­nal­ists in exile quit their pro­fes­sion, because projects end or they are unable to find work in the new geopo­lit­i­cal con­di­tions. These con­clu­sions are based on a sur­vey of a group of jour­nal­ists, the major­i­ty of whom are mid­dle-aged ones (26–45 years old), in the mid­dle of their careers. At the time of the sur­vey, only 25% had full employ­ment.

Happy stories and support

What should be done? Per­haps the answer lies in the researcher’s con­clu­sion: she notes a high­er rate of pro­fes­sion­al sur­vival in the media orga­ni­za­tions com­pared to jour­nal­ists work­ing inde­pen­dent­ly. Although, of course, the media orga­ni­za­tions in exile face prob­lems with fund­ing as well.

“Indi­vid­ual jour­nal­ists, work­ing on their own, are less like­ly to remain in the pro­fes­sion,” says Hanan Badr.

But it does not mean their life is bad, the pro­fes­sor explains – it just means their pro­fes­sion­al inter­ests shift from jour­nal­ism to oth­er fields, from activism to aca­d­e­m­ic careers or polit­i­cal con­sult­ing. “I did not have the time to high­light also some hap­pi­er sto­ries, like the cou­ple who just opened a restau­rant and they stopped being jour­nal­ists and found a new hap­py exis­tence where they came to peace with that,” says the researcher.

“We also have the Syr­i­an case, where after 14 years of civ­il war and armed con­flict and los­ing homes, Syr­i­an jour­nal­ists have at least had the hope that maybe they will return back home. Even with all the trau­ma and the emo­tion­al dif­fi­cul­ties of return­ing to a war zone”. 

The text is cre­at­ed with the sup­port of the Coun­cil of Europe Project “Strength­en­ing the capac­i­ties and skills of Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists and media actors in exile”.