From their backgrounds and through their extensive networks, FDM founders provide a broad scope of services and products for other publishers and media outlets, or sometimes for projects and organizations with a sizeable public outreach angle, such as human rights organizations or advocacy groups. Services include for instanceWe provide newsroom development support (journalistic, financial, operational, etc.), audience engagement strategies, digital security and hygiene support and public outreach and web development support. Products include mobile newsreader apps with next-to-no additional overhead, digital access technologies and clever newsroom workflow solutions.

But if you ask any of us what makes us tick, the common denominator is exiled media. It is a bit of a hype right now. Especially since the war in Ukraine and, more precise, since independent Russian media has been pushed into exile, both the public and policymakers in Europe and North-America came to know and appreciate the work of journalists in exile. But it is good to know that we have been working on this for a combined 3+ decades already and we will still be doing so long after the current attention fades. And it will fade, we have seen it come and go many times already. What is more, international attention is never equally divided. A few years ago, it was easy to get hands together for Myanmar, right now it is Russia. And it's never easy to get hands together for Yemen. Or Nicaragua.

Exiled media is the drafting of history on a specific territory, by people from that territory, but who are removed from that territory for political reasons. Oftentimes, this correlates with repressive regimes and severe limits to freedom of expression and media freedom. Every statement throughout our website about media struggles applies to them. And then some. A shrinking funding space is combined with political pressure against (potential) advertisers, or even sanctions limiting any transactions. The work pressure all journalists face is combined with having to do so in a foreign, sometimes hostile, environment.

Some challenges are even more specific. For instance, when you suffer from transnational repression, and when you have fled from a regime to begin with, how can you be expected to objectively report on said regime and be neutral covering them? And at the same time, blurring lines between activism and journalism pose a serious threat to the credibility of media organizations. Threats that are, full circle, happily exploited by said regimes. For all these reasons, and more, exiled media deserves sustained attention and focused programming.

FDM founders have managed exiled publishers, worked on exiled media matters from the media development side, have supported exiled media under attack. We have been under attack. FDM founders have stood at the cradle of the Network of Exiled Media Outlets (NEMO, yes the fish who is far away from home). We have worked on improved analytics and user needs, on diversification of revenue, on fundraising, on membership, on circumvention tech. We have worked with 2 highly dedicated people on community radio, have seen that develop into a small newsroom with a founder-editor-chief-director. Have seen that develop into a small publisher with much clearer divisions of labor and into an established outlet with a large pool of funders and all kinds of business initiatives.

Anywhere in that pipeline, we can come help you reach the next level. Through trial and error, we have learned what it takes (and does not take). All so you don't have to. If your organization fits any or all of the above and we don't know you yet, our sincere apologies! But let's chat.