Results of the BAJ Study «Situation and Needs of Belarusian Media Representatives»

The study shows that in addi­tion to polit­i­cal pres­sure from pro­fes­sion­al activ­i­ties, media work­ers are also affect­ed by oth­er fac­tors, such as lack of ade­quate access to health care or strug­gles with find­ing sus­tain­able employ­ment.

Image: BAJ

The BAJ’s pri­ma­ry objec­tive is to pro­tect and empow­er jour­nal­ists. The indi­vid­u­als behind the edi­to­r­i­al offices and posi­tions are human beings with inter­twined per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al chal­lenges. This report presents the find­ings of the third iter­a­tion of the study «The State and Needs of the Belaru­sian Media Rep­re­sen­ta­tives,» con­duct­ed by the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists. Last time the BAJ con­duct­ed a sim­i­lar sur­vey in 2021.

Who participated in the study?

The study is based on the data col­lect­ed from an anony­mous sur­vey of 211 par­tic­i­pants and the find­ings from ten in-depth inter­views.

The quan­ti­ta­tive sur­vey was com­plet­ed by a sam­ple of respon­dents aged 25–55, com­pris­ing approx­i­mate­ly an equal num­ber of men and women. Of these, 80% are employed in the media sec­tor. 10% are cur­rent­ly unem­ployed due to a lack of job oppor­tu­ni­ties, while 4% have opt­ed to pur­sue alter­na­tive career paths. Anoth­er 2% can­not work due to the polit­i­cal sit­u­a­tion in the Repub­lic of Belarus. Less than 1% are not work­ing because they are study­ing or retired.

Results of the BAJ Study «The Sit­u­a­tion and Needs of Belaru­sian Media Rep­re­sen­ta­tives» Decem­ber 5, 2024

The in-depth inter­vie­wees were most­ly women (7 out of 10). The respon­dents’ age groups are 23–27, 30–42, and 47–62.

Most respon­dents have exten­sive expe­ri­ence work­ing across var­i­ous posi­tions and media. Sev­er­al peo­ple are rep­re­sen­ta­tives of non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tions. Most of the respon­dents have worked in region­al and dis­trict-lev­el state-spon­sored media and inde­pen­dent media at dif­fer­ent stages of their careers. Two par­tic­i­pants start­ed their careers rel­a­tive­ly recently—after 2020.

Inter­view par­tic­i­pants were recruit­ed using con­ve­nience sam­pling. This means that those pro­fes­sion­als who respond­ed to the sur­vey and agreed to do an in-depth inter­view were invit­ed to par­tic­i­pate in the study.

Key findings. Journalists are in crisis, and not just professionally

The sur­vey shows that jour­nal­ists are expe­ri­enc­ing an acute pro­fes­sion­al and exis­ten­tial cri­sis. The inter­views allowed us to high­light how dif­fer­ent groups of pro­fes­sion­als are expe­ri­enc­ing the real­i­ties of the cri­sis, depend­ing on their pro­file and pro­fes­sion­al expe­ri­ence, cur­rent place of res­i­dence, age, and gen­der.

This is due not only to polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed repres­sion and occu­pa­tion­al haz­ards, forced dis­place­ment, and the loss of the oppor­tu­ni­ty to be close to loved ones and for­mer col­leagues but also, in many cas­es, the lack of sta­ble employ­ment and access to health care.

Professional problems

Belaru­sian non-state media are expe­ri­enc­ing a finan­cial cri­sis that makes it dif­fi­cult to find employ­ment. Peo­ple who do find it tend to have a hard time mak­ing ends meet on a jour­nal­ist’s salary, accord­ing to respon­dents.

In addi­tion, some edi­to­r­i­al offices may delay pay­ing salaries and fees due to a lack of funds. The quan­ti­ta­tive sur­vey showed that only 36.7% of respon­dents have a full-time employ­ment con­tract.

Most col­leagues have ser­vice contracts/independent con­trac­tor agree­ments or work free­lance. In in-depth inter­views, the major­i­ty of infor­mants indi­cat­ed that they engage in work across mul­ti­ple media or projects. Some also report­ed hold­ing part-time posi­tions in oth­er fields. Fur­ther­more, coor­di­nat­ing mul­ti­ple projects and types of work in emi­gra­tion is a more com­plex under­tak­ing, as it involves addi­tion­al chal­lenges relat­ed to the reg­u­lar­i­sa­tion of stay and inte­gra­tion.

Results of the BAJ Study «The Sit­u­a­tion and Needs of Belaru­sian Media Rep­re­sen­ta­tives» Decem­ber 5, 2024

Those inter­viewed not­ed with acute anx­i­ety and a sense of injus­tice that many of their col­leagues, both in Belarus and abroad, are leav­ing the pro­fes­sion. The com­bi­na­tion of per­se­cu­tion, risks of repres­sion, a fund­ing cri­sis, and a crit­i­cal lev­el of uncer­tain­ty about the future in emi­gra­tion may result in a nar­row­ing of the Belaru­sian media space. Many par­tic­i­pants indi­cat­ed they could not envis­age a future with­in the pro­fes­sion or in exile in gen­er­al due to the pre­vail­ing cli­mate of repres­sion, finan­cial con­straints, and dif­fi­cul­ties encoun­tered when obtain­ing a res­i­dence per­mit.

There is burnout, over­work, and stress because of the fear that the police will come again and the fear of any vis­i­tors (M, 50, more than 15 years in jour­nal­ism, Belarus).

There’s much uncer­tain­ty in the media sec­tor right now. We’re not sure what will hap­pen tomor­row or next year or if we’ll be able to keep work­ing the way we have been. […] Fund­ing is also up in the air. One of the projects that I con­tin­ue to work on, despite every­thing, did not receive fund­ing. Every­thing was fine for 20 years before that (M, 31, 13 years in jour­nal­ism, 3 years in forced emi­gra­tion in Poland).

Results of the BAJ Study «The Sit­u­a­tion and Needs of Belaru­sian Media Rep­re­sen­ta­tives» Decem­ber 5, 2024

• The risk of per­se­cu­tion for me or my fam­i­ly due to my pro­fes­sion­al work: 67.3%.
• Low wages and unsta­ble fund­ing for media out­lets: 62%.
• Exces­sive work­load: 40%.
• Lim­it­ed com­mu­ni­ca­tion with col­leagues: 34%.
• Dif­fi­cul­ty find­ing suit­able job oppor­tu­ni­ties: 32%.
• Issues with cen­sor­ship and self-cen­sor­ship: 27%.
• Lack of appro­pri­ate work­space: 24%.
• Out­dat­ed equip­ment in need of replace­ment: 20%.
• Absence of a local jour­nal­is­tic com­mu­ni­ty: 14%.

The dearth of sta­ble employ­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties on a con­tract basis ren­ders jour­nal­ists vul­ner­a­ble and social­ly unpro­tect­ed. The fast-paced nature of work, finan­cial and social pres­sures, and an over­all lack of sta­bil­i­ty impede the time­ly atten­tion that should be giv­en to health issues, which are a sig­nif­i­cant con­cern for many indi­vid­u­als.

Almost every­one works as an indi­vid­ual con­trac­tor, so legal­ly, peo­ple are not enti­tled to vaca­tion or sick leave. You run a fever, but you sit and work. Peo­ple try to accom­mo­date, find a com­pro­mise or a sub­sti­tute, or post­pone, but it depends on inter­per­son­al rela­tion­ships. And unfor­tu­nate­ly, there are no pro­tec­tions (F, 27, work­ing in the media since 2021, dou­ble emigration—Lithuania and Poland).

Results of the BAJ Study «The Sit­u­a­tion and Needs of Belaru­sian Media Rep­re­sen­ta­tives» Decem­ber 5, 2024

• Res­i­den­cy chal­lenges: 19%.
• Dif­fi­cul­ties obtain­ing res­i­dence per­mits for fam­i­ly mem­bers: 14%.
• Dis­crim­i­na­tion based on Belaru­sian cit­i­zen­ship: 15%.
• Phys­i­cal health prob­lems: 35%.
• Men­tal health strug­gles: 49%.
• Lack of health insur­ance: 28%.
• Feel­ing iso­lat­ed due to the absence of friends and loved ones in the new coun­try: 26%.
• Lan­guage bar­ri­ers in the host coun­try: 40%.
• Chal­lenges find­ing edu­ca­tion­al insti­tu­tions for chil­dren: 3%.
• Lack of child­care sup­port for young chil­dren: 10%.

Fig­ures are round­ed to the near­est whole num­ber.

Results of the BAJ Study «The Sit­u­a­tion and Needs of Belaru­sian Media Rep­re­sen­ta­tives» Decem­ber 5, 2024

Even for those who work in-house, the issue of health insur­ance and its pay­ment remains rel­e­vant. In many instances where emer­gency surgery or oth­er urgent med­ical care is required, the only avail­able option is to pay for med­ical ser­vices, as there is no time to wait for more afford­able or free alter­na­tives. The vast major­i­ty of par­tic­i­pants indi­cat­ed that they fre­quent­ly need a clear­er under­stand­ing of the sys­tem and the process for get­ting a doc­tor’s appoint­ment in their host coun­try, even when they have indi­vid­ual or fam­i­ly insur­ance.

Sev­er­al respon­dents indi­cat­ed that they can­not afford health insur­ance and are unsure how to address this issue. In many cas­es, the only viable options are dias­po­ra assis­tance (a loan from friends and acquain­tances or a crowd­fund­ing cam­paign), indi­vid­ual grants, and oppor­tu­ni­ties to improve health pro­vid­ed by pro­fes­sion­al jour­nal­is­tic orga­ni­za­tions such as the BAJ (short-term vaca­tion or cov­er­ing ther­a­py or surgery expens­es).

Age

Age is an addi­tion­al fac­tor impact­ing qual­i­ty of life and access to the labor mar­ket. Indi­vid­u­als with con­sid­er­able pro­fes­sion­al expe­ri­ence but of an advanced age are par­tic­u­lar­ly vul­ner­a­ble among jour­nal­ists in exile.

While younger pro­fes­sion­als can often find alter­na­tive roles, such as social media man­age­ment and vlog­ging, that do not require exten­sive expe­ri­ence, those with more tra­di­tion­al back­grounds can face chal­lenges when seek­ing employ­ment. One old­er respon­dent indi­cat­ed that he had applied for sev­er­al posi­tions in the media and relat­ed fields but could not secure in-house employ­ment due to his age. His expe­ri­ence illus­trates the chal­lenges Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists face in forced emi­gra­tion.

I’ve nev­er gone through a life cri­sis like this one, so it’s been pret­ty tough. My life was no bowl of cher­ries, but it was man­age­able [laughs]. But things get tricky when there’s no mon­ey, ill­ness­es strike, and no one employs you in City X because you are over 60. When you’re in a bind and don’t know if you’ll be able to pay the rent tomor­row, you don’t have the funds, and X media has­n’t paid the agreed-upon min­i­mum wage for five months. Not only to me but to sev­er­al dozen peo­ple (M, 60+, has worked in the media since the 90s, 3 years in forced emi­gra­tion to Poland).

Female jour­nal­ists recent­ly enter­ing the pro­fes­sion also cite a lack of oppor­tu­ni­ties to devel­op pro­fes­sion­al con­tacts as a chal­lenge. This is due to the geo­graph­i­cal frag­men­ta­tion of pro­fes­sion­al com­mu­ni­ties (Poland, Geor­gia, Lithua­nia) and lim­it­ed access to estab­lished net­works of con­tacts, which are more read­i­ly avail­able to jour­nal­ists with long-stand­ing expe­ri­ence. In addi­tion, pro­fes­sion­als of all ages have indi­cat­ed that the secre­cy of com­mu­ni­ca­tion chan­nels and pro­fes­sion­al rela­tion­ships is a sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenge in the cur­rent job mar­ket, as evi­denced by the quotes below.

So, the vacan­cies are cir­cu­lat­ed in the com­mu­ni­ty or jour­nal­ist chats, but the employ­er already has some peo­ple in mind who they would like to see in this vacan­cy (F, 35, 8 years in the media sphere, 3 years in forced emi­gra­tion in Poland).

There are not many jobs post­ed pub­licly. From what I’ve seen, a lot of peo­ple get jobs, if not through acquaintances—it would be wrong to say this because these peo­ple have spe­cif­ic skills—then by hav­ing access to job post­ings in gen­er­al (F, 27, work­ing in the media since 2021, dou­ble emigration—Lithuania and Poland).

The geo­graph­i­cal frag­men­ta­tion of pro­fes­sion­al com­mu­ni­ties also affects every­day work com­mu­ni­ca­tion. For exam­ple, a large dias­po­ra and a ded­i­cat­ed media hub in War­saw con­tribute to pro­fes­sion­al sup­port. The media hub has become a great place to work and social­ize, but some respon­dents say there used to be more inter­est­ing events there.

Jour­nal­ists based in Vil­nius, War­saw, and Bia­lystok report hav­ing a robust net­work of con­tacts with­in reach. In con­trast, jour­nal­ists from Wrocław and Tbil­isi cite a lack of offline com­mu­ni­ca­tion and a sense of iso­la­tion. This issue is espe­cial­ly rel­e­vant for those who work from home.

I talk with my col­leagues once a week (at staff meet­ings), and the rest of the time, we text each oth­er. I feel the lack of ver­bal com­mu­ni­ca­tion is sig­nif­i­cant. And not only with col­leagues. There’s a real lack of com­mu­ni­ca­tion (F, 47, more than 10 years in jour­nal­ism, 2 years in forced emi­gra­tion in Poland).

Since so many teams and pub­li­ca­tions are spread across dif­fer­ent cities and coun­tries, there are few team-build­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties (M, 31, 13 years in jour­nal­ism, 3 years in forced emi­gra­tion to Poland).

Not being able to stay in touch with col­leagues all the time. It’s hap­pen­ing online, but it’s less intense than it was in Belarus. This is online com­mu­ni­ca­tion. First­ly, we are in dif­fer­ent cities. Sec­ond­ly, how we work means my col­leagues don’t usu­al­ly spend eight hours in the office.

In most cas­es, it’s a rent­ed apart­ment with­out fur­nish­ings. The only thing that is arranged is a slop­py-built stu­dio (F, 35, 8 years in the media sphere, 3 years in forced emi­gra­tion to Poland).

Inter­view par­tic­i­pants address equip­ment and premis­es issues in dif­fer­ent ways. In three out of ten inter­views, respon­dents indi­cat­ed that they had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to upgrade equip­ment (com­put­ers) at the expense of the edi­to­r­i­al office. In oth­er instances, jour­nal­ists uti­lize either office equip­ment, fre­quent­ly requir­ing replace­ment, or per­son­al equip­ment pur­chased with their funds. Fur­ther­more, no con­cerns were raised regard­ing the suit­abil­i­ty of the office space in any of the inter­views, as many employ­ees have become accus­tomed to work­ing from home or in co-work­ing spaces.  

Harassment

16% of respon­dents indi­cat­ed they had expe­ri­enced harass­ment, rep­re­sent­ing 34 indi­vid­u­als out of 211. It is note­wor­thy that the respons­es did not vary sig­nif­i­cant­ly based on gen­der. Both women and men report­ed expe­ri­enc­ing harass­ment at a sim­i­lar rate.

Results of the BAJ Study «The Sit­u­a­tion and Needs of Belaru­sian Media Rep­re­sen­ta­tives» Decem­ber 5, 2024

Some respon­dents high­light the chal­lenges of com­mu­ni­cat­ing with col­leagues in a pub­lic set­ting, the occa­sion­al­ly tox­ic envi­ron­ment in pro­fes­sion­al online com­mu­ni­ties, and mis­un­der­stand­ings in edi­to­r­i­al offices. They also cite dif­fi­cul­ties in fos­ter­ing pro­fes­sion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty.

Emi­gra­tion has brought some tricky com­mu­ni­ca­tion issues to the fore. I’ve noticed that jour­nal­is­tic chats can some­times get heat­ed, with debates break­ing out on var­i­ous top­ics, from lan­guage to head­lines to eth­i­cal issues. I some­times won­der if it’s worth ask­ing col­leagues for help. You might get some advice or get hit in the head (F, 35, 8 years in the media sphere, 3 years in forced emi­gra­tion to Poland).

We often have trou­ble giv­ing each oth­er con­struc­tive crit­i­cism. When some­thing comes up that needs to be addressed, instead of start­ing a dis­cus­sion, peo­ple tend to launch attacks. Once again, it seems like a flame­war with­out any con­struc­tive dia­logue, deci­sion-mak­ing, or reach­ing a con­sen­sus (F, 27, work­ing in media since 2021, dou­ble emigration—Lithuania and Poland).

The com­mu­ni­ca­tion that we used to have in Belarus is no longer there. There are no com­mu­ni­ty events. The things that exist do not bring sat­is­fac­tion. I want to stay away from every­body (F, 38, 13 years in jour­nal­ism, 3 years in forced emi­gra­tion to Poland).

Cas­es of vio­lat­ing work com­mu­ni­ca­tion ethics and psy­cho­log­i­cal abuse were report­ed. These includ­ed col­leagues speak­ing in an unac­cept­able tone of voice and using foul lan­guage in pub­lic dis­cus­sions.

Harass­ment was not suf­fi­cient­ly addressed in in-depth inter­views. More sen­si­tive meth­ods are need­ed to build trust when talk­ing about this top­ic (includ­ing medi­a­tion or con­ver­sa­tion cir­cles). Quan­ti­ta­tive inter­views show that harass­ment should be dis­cussed regard­less of the respon­den­t’s gen­der.

I had a male col­league who humil­i­at­ed all the women who worked with him. He did­n’t offend me—there was no harassment—but he’s the per­son who makes you feel dumb work­ing with him. You should­n’t feel that way at work. There was a sit­u­a­tion when he cussed me out. It took me three days to come to my sens­es. I am a vul­ner­a­ble per­son. It made me feel ter­ri­ble; I lost my abili­ty to work. […] It was­n’t even a mis­take on my part. The per­son just lost his nerve. […] The same per­son could call me at 3 a.m. and dis­cuss work. This is unac­cept­able (F, 27, work­ing in the media since 2021, dou­ble emigration—Lithuania and Poland).

Results of the BAJ Study «The Sit­u­a­tion and Needs of Belaru­sian Media Rep­re­sen­ta­tives» Decem­ber 5, 2024

In addi­tion to the pro­fes­sion­al com­mu­ni­ca­tion chal­lenges men­tioned above, respon­dents report­ed declin­ing pro­fes­sion­al work stan­dards due to a lack of time and human resources for fact-check­ing and work­ing on spe­cif­ic top­ics (e.g., with vul­ner­a­ble groups).

There are few­er and few­er jour­nal­is­tic gen­res out there, and peo­ple are try­ing to do too many things at once. There’s a lot of talk about the chal­lenges of using con­stant­ly chang­ing ter­mi­nol­o­gy. The spread of hate speech is wor­ry­ing. Many have had to deal with mod­ern chal­lenges in the pro­fes­sion, such as the com­pe­ti­tion for an audi­ence (click­bait, reduc­ing time for proof­read­ing, etc.).

If you have com­pe­ti­tion or col­leagues who will point out mis­takes, it’s eas­i­er to main­tain a pro­fes­sion­al lev­el. But when every­one is chas­ing clicks, when there are 4–5 major Belaru­sian media out­lets in exile, and they all work approx­i­mate­ly the same way, striv­ing to attract as many read­ers or view­ers as pos­si­ble, then the lev­el of jour­nal­ism drops. […] We don’t have a clear idea of what con­sti­tutes accept­able lev­els of click­bait. Espe­cial­ly if the head­line does­n’t con­tain a direct insult but is close to it (F, 35, 8 years in media, 3 years in forced emi­gra­tion in Poland).

At the moment, I am work­ing on an ini­tia­tive that cov­ers Belaru­sian soci­ety’s atti­tude towards LGBTQ+ peo­ple. But we have noticed recent­ly that cov­er­age of such issues has been dimin­ish­ing in the media space. […] Many edi­to­r­i­al offices work express­ly with a polit­i­cal slant and have start­ed to write less about vul­ner­a­ble groups (F, 33, 9 years in the media sphere, forced emi­gra­tion to Geor­gia).

Even the approach to word­ing is chang­ing. We used to write «migrants and refugees,» but now human rights activists say we should write «migrants, includ­ing refugees.» Words and approach­es change, but the media might not be able to keep up with it all because of time con­straints (F, 33, 9 years in the media sphere, forced emi­gra­tion to Geor­gia).

In this regard, par­tic­i­pants raise issues of pro­fes­sion­al and eth­i­cal stan­dards for jour­nal­ists and the need to update the cur­rent pro­fes­sion­al code. Many respon­dents believe that estab­lish­ing writ­ten rules and fos­ter­ing con­struc­tive pub­lic dia­logue with­in the pro­fes­sion­al com­mu­ni­ty can assist jour­nal­ists in nav­i­gat­ing eth­i­cal chal­lenges in pub­lish­ing mate­ri­als, resolv­ing con­flicts, and address­ing vio­la­tions of pro­fes­sion­al ethics in their dai­ly inter­ac­tions with col­leagues.

Results of the BAJ Study «The Sit­u­a­tion and Needs of Belaru­sian Media Rep­re­sen­ta­tives» Decem­ber 5, 2024

The respon­dents indi­cat­ed that eth­i­cal self-reg­u­la­tion offers insight and resources for «nav­i­gat­ing var­i­ous con­flicts and under­stand­ing the bound­aries of accept­able con­duct for jour­nal­ists.» It is of the utmost impor­tance that respon­dents refrain from any action that could harm their sources in Belarus or pro­mote the agen­da of the repres­sive regime. 

Respon­dents to our in-depth inter­views high­light­ed that they work in media orga­ni­za­tions and NGOs with writ­ten eth­i­cal guide­lines. The BAJ code of ethics also guides them. How­ev­er, in each par­tic­u­lar case, the exist­ing reg­u­la­tions may prove insuf­fi­cient. The issues and new chal­lenges out­lined above neces­si­tate a review and poten­tial updates to the code.

Results of the BAJ Study «The Sit­u­a­tion and Needs of Belaru­sian Media Rep­re­sen­ta­tives» Decem­ber 5, 2024

With­out writ­ten rules in their edi­to­r­i­al offices and orga­ni­za­tions, sur­vey par­tic­i­pants resolve con­tro­ver­sial issues with col­leagues in dis­cus­sions on staff meet­ings and «edi­to­r­i­al dis­putes.» Sev­er­al respon­dents indi­cat­ed that their work teams are imple­ment­ing writ­ten eth­i­cal self-reg­u­la­tion rules.

In some inter­views, the neces­si­ty for pro­fes­sion­al asso­ci­a­tions to facil­i­tate the cre­ation of infra­struc­ture oppor­tu­ni­ties for jour­nal­ists to unite and rein­state the prac­tice of self-assess­ment and self-reg­u­la­tion, which was pre­vi­ous­ly estab­lished in Belarus, was dis­cussed. This includ­ed the for­ma­tion of a spe­cial­ized ethics com­mit­tee and the ongo­ing work of «Jour­nal­ists for Tol­er­ance.»

Censorship and self-censorship—persecution for the profession

All respon­dents’ pri­ma­ry chal­lenge is to achieve an opti­mal bal­ance between the qual­i­ty of media mate­ri­als and the secu­ri­ty mea­sures nec­es­sary to pro­tect sources of infor­ma­tion, jour­nal­ists them­selves, and their fam­i­lies and col­leagues in chal­leng­ing cir­cum­stances. All respon­dents con­firmed that, as a result, cen­sor­ship and self-cen­sor­ship are prac­ticed dai­ly with­in the teams.

The indi­vid­u­als respon­si­ble for cre­at­ing the mate­ri­als must con­sid­er even the most fun­da­men­tal risks; edi­tors and man­agers are also tasked with this respon­si­bil­i­ty. This is most rel­e­vant for pro­fes­sion­als based in Belarus. A jour­nal­ist from Belarus not­ed that work­ing in such con­di­tions and pro­duc­ing mate­ri­als is becom­ing increas­ing­ly dif­fi­cult. It should be not­ed that media pro­fes­sion­als work­ing abroad may be exposed to cer­tain risks, as many of them have rel­a­tives or prop­er­ty in Belarus.

The inter­views revealed instances where, as a result of the pro­fes­sion­al activ­i­ties of jour­nal­ists abroad, their rel­a­tives in Belarus were sub­ject­ed to inter­ro­ga­tions or had their prop­er­ty searched and sequestered.

Training

Most par­tic­i­pants in the in-depth inter­views uti­lized avail­able resources and pro­fes­sion­al learn­ing projects. They indi­cat­ed that should one desire it, there are always oppor­tu­ni­ties to expand knowl­edge and com­pe­ten­cies. Some inter­vie­wees did, how­ev­er, high­light the issue of media stag­na­tion. They indi­cat­ed a focus on estab­lished prac­tices and speak­ers. Fur­ther­more, they high­light­ed the neces­si­ty of mod­ern­iz­ing work tools and train­ing con­tent.

The issue is that some media out­lets are stuck in their ways. I don’t mean in 2020, but rather in terms of the tech and meth­ods used to build a brand (M, 31, 13 years in jour­nal­ism, 3 years in forced emi­gra­tion in Poland).

I’m hav­ing trou­ble putting it into words, but I often feel like I’m going through the motions and not pro­gress­ing much. It’s a lack of knowl­edge and train­ing and an over­all feel­ing of stag­na­tion (F, 38, 13 years in jour­nal­ism, 3 years in forced emi­gra­tion in Poland).

Among the most press­ing train­ing needs iden­ti­fied were improv­ing skills and expand­ing the avail­abil­i­ty of arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence tools. Media pro­fes­sion­als note that the skills dis­cussed in train­ing ses­sions, includ­ing those with for­eign speak­ers, are not always applic­a­ble to the work process. The prob­lem is that the avail­able AI tools are lim­it­ed in lan­guage ver­sions and func­tion­al­i­ty.

Anoth­er request of the old­er gen­er­a­tion of jour­nal­ists, among oth­ers in Belarus, is train­ing on social media plat­forms such as Tik­Tok. One of the jour­nal­ists not­ed that it is some­times dif­fi­cult for him to quick­ly and effi­cient­ly cre­ate con­tent on Tik­Tok, select images, and pub­lish posts to the plat­form.

Many exiled media pro­fes­sion­als not­ed that more oppor­tu­ni­ties should be cre­at­ed for net­work­ing and shar­ing expe­ri­ences between dif­fer­ent projects. They would like to dis­cuss the rel­e­vant ter­mi­nol­o­gy (lan­guage for report­ing on vul­ner­a­ble groups, fem­i­nism, etc.) and the pro­fes­sion’s mod­ern chal­lenges.

Mental health issues

Spe­cial atten­tion should be paid to emo­tion­al burnout and media pro­fes­sion­als’ men­tal health. Each respon­dent has a unique expe­ri­ence that, in some way, relates to men­tal health chal­lenges that have arisen in the con­text of a pro­fes­sion­al, social, or per­son­al cri­sis. Two out of ten inter­views revealed that respon­dents had attempt­ed sui­cide, and two addi­tion­al media pro­fes­sion­als had been diag­nosed with depres­sion. In one inter­view, the female respon­dent dis­cussed the issue of domes­tic vio­lence and the chal­leng­ing process of men­tal recov­ery.

All ten inter­vie­wees sought coun­sel from psy­chother­a­pists. Some have borne the cost of their ses­sions out of pock­et, while oth­ers have accessed pro bono ser­vices avail­able in the com­mu­ni­ty. All inter­views includ­ed a request for long-term access to ther­a­pists and men­tal health med­ica­tions. It is often chal­leng­ing to find a spe­cial­ist who pro­vides prac­ti­cal help with­in short-term free pro­grams («It would be great to have the chance to use these ser­vices on an ongo­ing basis, rather than just ten ses­sions every six months or so.»)

Fur­ther­more, short-term retreats and oppor­tu­ni­ties to relax, includ­ing short-term vaca­tion pro­grams avail­able in the pro­fes­sion­al com­mu­ni­ty, can improve psy­cho­log­i­cal well-being.  

The main per­son­al issue I have with work is that my health is suf­fer­ing due to stress. There­fore, a good rest is very valu­able. This sum­mer, a project paid for me to stay at a health resort, which was a great expe­ri­ence. Would­n’t it be great if we could take a vaca­tion like this every year? Just know­ing it’s pos­si­ble makes a big dif­fer­ence (M, 50, over 15 years in jour­nal­ism, Belarus).

I don’t think pro bono ther­a­pists are par­tic­u­lar­ly eager to help. My first ther­a­pist gave me a lec­ture, did­n’t lis­ten to what I was say­ing, and was repeat­ing him­self (F, 47, over 10 years in jour­nal­ism, 2 years in forced emi­gra­tion in Poland).

As iden­ti­fied by inter­view par­tic­i­pants, anoth­er cru­cial area of request­ed assis­tance is pro­vid­ing indi­vid­ual guid­ance and sup­port in locat­ing spe­cial­ist care for indi­vid­u­als fac­ing cri­sis sit­u­a­tions. This will facil­i­tate more expe­di­ent access to tar­get­ed care by elim­i­nat­ing the need for the trau­ma­tized per­son to search for a spe­cial­ist and sched­ule mul­ti­ple appoint­ments.

Residency issues, language barrier, and discrimination in the host country

Jour­nal­ists in exile face dif­fi­cul­ties in reg­u­lar­is­ing their stay. As a result, they can­not obtain time­ly med­ical care for them­selves and their depen­dents and access to edu­ca­tion­al oppor­tu­ni­ties for their chil­dren.

The grant­i­ng of inter­na­tion­al pro­tec­tion plays a role in address­ing res­i­den­cy issues. How­ev­er, the legal sta­tus of these indi­vid­u­als can change depend­ing on the polit­i­cal sit­u­a­tion in the host coun­try, cre­at­ing uncer­tain­ty about future reg­u­la­to­ry change.

As a result, some respon­dents have a dou­ble expe­ri­ence of emi­gra­tion (from Lithua­nia to Poland). Some plan to change their coun­try of res­i­dence because they feel polit­i­cal­ly endan­gered (par­tic­u­lar­ly, in Geor­gia).

Results of the BAJ Study «The Sit­u­a­tion and Needs of Belaru­sian Media Rep­re­sen­ta­tives» Decem­ber 5, 2024

A rel­a­tive­ly large per­cent­age of col­leagues are still con­cerned about the pos­si­bil­i­ty of chang­ing their coun­try of res­i­dence. For exam­ple, 27.5% of respon­dents are con­sid­er­ing mov­ing, and anoth­er 7.6% plan to move this year or next. Most respon­dents who chose this answer indi­cat­ed liv­ing in Belarus, Lithua­nia, or Geor­gia.

64.5% of respon­dents said they did not plan to move to a new coun­try. Inter­est­ing­ly, respons­es to the ques­tion were vir­tu­al­ly unaf­fect­ed by jour­nal­ists’ age and gen­der.

An expired pass­port, which can no longer be renewed out­side Belarus, com­pli­cates the sit­u­a­tion in many cas­es. Due to the afore­men­tioned fac­tors and the inabil­i­ty to obtain edu­ca­tion­al cer­tifi­cates from Belarus, the respon­dents’ old­er chil­dren can­not com­mence high­er edu­ca­tion.

Car­ing for chil­dren from young age to ado­les­cence is an addi­tion­al fac­tor con­tribut­ing to wom­en’s over­all expe­ri­ence in this field. Female jour­nal­ists have not­ed that due to human inse­cu­ri­ty and low wages, par­ents can­not afford to pay rent and nec­es­sary med­ical care for their chil­dren. Due to an excess of work and lan­guage bar­ri­ers, it is chal­leng­ing to nav­i­gate the search for an edu­ca­tion­al insti­tu­tion and com­mu­ni­cate with the admin­is­tra­tion and fac­ul­ty.

Female respon­dents indi­cate that non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tions and pro­fes­sion­al com­mu­ni­ties could assist in address­ing these issues by pro­vid­ing acces­si­ble and under­stand­able guid­ance that con­cise­ly out­lines the nec­es­sary steps. They also need direc­tion to resources that facil­i­tate search­ing and com­mu­ni­ca­tion with edu­ca­tion­al insti­tu­tions.

For female jour­nal­ists con­sid­er­ing start­ing a fam­i­ly, the ques­tion of finan­cial secu­ri­ty for their future fam­i­ly is a sig­nif­i­cant con­cern, par­tic­u­lar­ly in light of the chal­lenges asso­ci­at­ed with forced emi­gra­tion. A con­sid­er­able chal­lenge for female jour­nal­ists in Poland is the lack of access to con­tra­cep­tives and the lim­it­ed avail­abil­i­ty of abor­tion ser­vices.  

A sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of respon­dents high­light­ed the chal­lenges asso­ci­at­ed with learn­ing the host coun­try’s lan­guage. They expe­ri­enced dis­crim­i­na­tion due to lan­guage bar­ri­ers in med­ical or edu­ca­tion­al insti­tu­tions. Due to exces­sive work and the chal­leng­ing nature of spe­cif­ic lan­guages (in par­tic­u­lar, Lithuan­ian), con­fi­dent com­mu­ni­ca­tion with native speak­ers is an issue.

This can sig­nif­i­cant­ly impact job search oppor­tu­ni­ties. How­ev­er, many media pro­fes­sion­als not­ed that they are try­ing to learn the lan­guage on their own or with the help of free and paid cours­es. Some respon­dents note that the avail­abil­i­ty of offline cours­es with live prac­tice can sig­nif­i­cant­ly speed up the lan­guage learn­ing process and help over­come the bar­ri­ers described above.

This is not easy. While look­ing for work for sev­er­al months, I kept com­ing up against the same issue. For exam­ple, my Pol­ish was­n’t good enough to get me hired as a secu­ri­ty guard (M, 60+, has been work­ing in the media since the 90s, 3 years in forced emi­gra­tion in Poland) 

I did­n’t start learn­ing Pol­ish until lat­er in life because I was wor­ried about los­ing my Belaru­sian iden­ti­ty. […] In the first month of my time in Poland, I had to speak with the school prin­ci­pal. I spoke slow­ly in Belarusian—we under­stood each oth­er. It seemed to me that he was open to it.
 Then, there was a pret­ty scary inci­dent when an ambu­lance was called to my daugh­ter’s school because she was hav­ing heart pain. After that, we went to a pri­vate pedi­atric car­di­ol­o­gist. I paid a lot of mon­ey. The doc­tor start­ed to explain some­thing in Pol­ish. I asked him to speak more slow­ly because I was still learning Pol­ish. (I had mem­o­rized this phrase in Pol­ish before the vis­it). The doc­tor threw up his hands, said some­thing like, «No talk­ing, no coun­sel­ing,» and shooed us out the door. (F, 47, over 10 years in jour­nal­ism, 2 years in forced emi­gra­tion in Poland)

I can now order some­thing in Geor­gian. When asked for direc­tions, I can reply where to go, which is use­ful in small dai­ly sit­u­a­tions.
 I have some acquain­tances among Geor­gians. I can text them in Geor­gian. I don’t know every­thing, but I can grasp some basic con­cepts. I’m fol­low­ing a few Geor­gian blog­gers, so I’m get­ting a feel for the lan­guage there (F, 33, 9 years in the media sphere, forced emi­gra­tion to Geor­gia).

As evi­denced by both quan­ti­ta­tive and qual­i­ta­tive research, the Belaru­sian media sphere is expe­ri­enc­ing a peri­od of cri­sis. It requires infra­struc­ture changes, new approach­es, and resources to unite pro­fes­sion­al com­mu­ni­ties and tech­no­log­i­cal and finan­cial sup­port.

Media pro­fes­sion­als make col­lec­tive and indi­vid­ual efforts to uphold pro­fes­sion­al val­ues and con­struc­tive dia­logue. How­ev­er, the sit­u­a­tion is com­pound­ed by the acute chal­lenges of repres­sion and the asso­ci­at­ed risks, mis­trust, and lack of resources with­in the com­mu­ni­ty, as well as the tech­no­log­i­cal and eth­i­cal chal­lenges of the mod­ern media indus­try.

The most urgent con­cerns that direct­ly impact respon­dents’ work are legal and social inse­cu­ri­ty, work over­load, and the nar­row­ing of oppor­tu­ni­ties to change jobs or work in dif­fer­ent gen­res and areas. Fur­ther­more, there are addi­tion­al chal­lenges relat­ed to the res­i­den­cy and dis­crim­i­na­tion faced by pro­fes­sion­als seek­ing to emi­grate, as well as the poten­tial for burnout and the impact on phys­i­cal and men­tal health.

Brief findings:

• The sit­u­a­tion of Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists is pre­car­i­ous, both with­in Belarus and in the con­text of forced emi­gra­tion.
• The Belaru­sian media sec­tor still requires sub­stan­tial inter­na­tion­al and domes­tic sup­port to ensure its con­tin­ued abil­i­ty to devel­op and retain its human cap­i­tal. The work of Belaru­sian sup­port orga­ni­za­tions and inter­na­tion­al part­ners is essen­tial to this effort.
• It is cru­cial to address the fol­low­ing issues: the decline in media job oppor­tu­ni­ties, the chal­lenge of reg­is­ter­ing media per­son­nel as employ­ees, and the lack of social pro­tec­tion for media pro­fes­sion­als. Tar­get­ed psy­cho­log­i­cal and med­ical assis­tance pro­grams are need­ed.
• There is a con­tin­ued need for local lan­guage learn­ing pro­grams in host coun­tries.
• Although harass­ment of media work­ers is not the pri­ma­ry issue, there is still a need to devel­op pol­i­cy doc­u­ments and cre­ate mech­a­nisms to pro­tect them.
• The sit­u­a­tion for jour­nal­ists remain­ing in Belarus is par­tic­u­lar­ly chal­leng­ing.