Infrastructure for exile : The future of press freedom in Latin America
What happens when exile stops being an exceptional event and becomes a structural problem? In recent years, the number of journalists forced to leave their countries in Latin America has increased. Given this reality, SembraMedia aims to support solid infrastructure for these groups, providing media outlets and journalists with tools to navigate these processes and continue reporting, if they choose to do so.
We discussed this at the Exile Media Forum 2026 in Hamburg, Germany, during a panel moderated by Sofía Álvarez, our Initiatives Director. The conversation centered on “exiles, plural”—because the stories of exile are diverse. They also affect not only the journalists themselves, but also their families, who must rebuild their lives from scratch in a new country.
Over the past few months, SembraMedia’s team of Digital Media Specialists conducted exploratory research on journalism in exile. Based on surveys and interviews with displaced Latin American journalists, here are some of our preliminary findings:
- The primary causes of exile among surveyed reporters were direct threats, surveillance or harassment, and detention or the risk of detention.
- Two out of three displaced journalists had no exit protocol agreed upon in advance with their media outlets or organizations, and nearly half of the surveyed outlets lack crisis management or prevention protocols.
- Only 13.5% of journalists received support from their media outlet to execute their departure, as organizational structures face the same precarious conditions and persecution as their reporters.
Faced with this scenario, SembraMedia proposes a holistic support structure built on two pillars: risk management and prevention, so safety does not depend on improvising at the worst possible moment ; and safety and well-being, because team mental health is a core component of newsroom sustainability.
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