Broadcasting through the (New) Iron Curtain: Practices, Challenges, and Legacies of Russia's Independent Media in Exile

Abstract

The Russo-Ukrainian war and the Kremlin's military censorship have made independent reporting from within Russia impossible. After a few weeks of the conflict, all institutional journalism was forced into exile. Funding sources, access to informants, and the ability to provide objective conflict coverage quickly vanished. Now in exile, Russian journalists have become entirely reliant on donor funding to sustain operations and on new technologies to reach audiences inside Russia. Over 18 months in exile, we conducted more than 50 interviews with editors-in-chief, senior correspondents, and individual journalists adapting to these new circumstances. We asked about audience access, funding opportunities, reliance on new technologies, and organisational challenges within newsrooms. This paper argues that these new conditions have underscored pre-existing issues within Russian media while introducing challenges brought about by the war and exile. However, in a global context, these issues closely mirror those faced by exiled journalists worldwide.

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