This resource is part of our Exiled Media Toolkit, produced in partnership with the Network of Exiled Media Outlets (NEMO), and with the generous support of the Joyce Barnathan Emergency Fund for Journalists.
For nearly two decades, Zamaneh Media has brought the people of Iran valuable information about their country, one of the most closed information ecosystems in the world. The outlet, which operates from the Netherlands and whose name means “time” in old literary Persian, is one of the most visible media platforms writing about Iran today, reporting stories in Persian and English on topics such as mass executions in prisons, child labor, and treatment of Afghan migrants.
“As a news organization, we have something that a lot of advocacy organizations, for instance, don’t have, which is reach,” said Joris van Duijne, Zamaneh Media’s executive director at the time of this interview.
The Iranian government is one of the world’s most repressive in terms of press freedom, ranking 176 out of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders’ press freedom index. Thirty-five journalists are detained by the Iranian government as of September 2024, often under vague and arbitrary laws such as offending religious and political leaders.
While a 1985 press law expressly forbids censorship in Iran, in practice press freedom has been severely curtailed in the country, and authorities have instigated several crackdowns on the press over the years. The repression only intensified following nationwide protests in 2022 in response to the killing of a young Iranian woman, Mahsa Amini, by the state’s morality police.
We spoke with van Duijne about how Zamaneh Media has evolved since its founding in 2005, the role it plays in reporting stories from within Iran for the outside world, and the challenges it faces operating in one of the world’s most restrictive press freedom environments.
The evolution of Iranian exiled media
With very few independent Iranian media organizations operating within or outside Iran in 2005, Zamaneh Media filled a critical gap when it launched.
In light of the threats to press freedom in Iran, in 2004 an Iranian-Dutch Member of the Dutch Parliament, Farahnaz Karimi, introduced a motion to support Iranian media. Zamaneh Media was one of the projects created as a result of the motion, initially as a shortwave radio service broadcasting into Iran.
From the start, the young newsroom used shortwave to bypass government censorship and deliver information directly to Iranians. When the Iranian government began blocking its signal, Zamaneh Media responded by constantly switching the frequencies it used. This, however, increased the cost and difficulty of its operation.
“[Broadcasting] became increasingly expensive. We had to maintain more and more frequencies. You end up with a discoverability issue if you change frequencies at some point, multiple times a day,” van Duijne said.
Zamaneh Media launched its website in 2006, and in the years that followed phased out its shortwave to operate primarily as a digital platform. Their content priorities changed in tandem: the outlet moved away from time-sensitive news updates to instead produce feature reporting around philosophy, arts and culture, as well as politics and human rights in Iran.
The shift, explained Van Duijne, allowed the newsroom to redirect resources and staff time away from competing with other organizations for scoops, to publishing longer-form stories.
“In the beginning, when there was nothing else [in the exiled Iranian media landscape], we needed to serve everybody,” Van Duijne said. “In this changing media landscape for Iran, we have started to redefine our purpose […] and say if that’s our role, that’s our role.”
Serving audiences in Iran
Zamaneh Media’s primary audience — two-thirds, according to van Duijne — are Iranians inside Iran. Keeping a finger on the pulse of what is happening in the country is a chief challenge for the newsroom as it strives to inform these readers.
“How you maintain the close connection with what is going on on the ground is the tricky part,” van Duijne said.
To carry out its reporting, Zamaneh Media works with exiled Iranian journalists who retain sources and connections inside Iran. The arrangement requires the newsroom to regularly scout journalists leaving the country, such as those who left Iran following the 2022 protests. “You're kind of reliant on new blood that has a direct link with Iran because over time people don't understand what's happening on the ground,” said van Duijne.
Keeping a consistent flow of journalists who have recently left Iran in its network also helps Zamaneh Media keep its language up to date with how it is spoken inside the country today. Journalists who are second- or third-generation immigrants from Iran, many of whom left shortly after the 1979 Revolution, don’t speak the same way as Iranians in the country do today, van Duijne said, including differences in word choices and slang.
Security considerations
Zamaneh Media constantly assesses and reassesses security protocols to ensure the safety of its reporters and sources, and in response to efforts by the Iranian government to suppress its reporting.
The outlet’s “first line of defense” is to compartmentalize its sources and reporters, so that if one is compromised, it doesn’t put its entire network at risk, said van Duijne: “The journalists don't know of each other's sources. The sources don't know of each other's existence.”
The newsroom, meanwhile, has adapted its online security infrastructure to continue operating in the face of DDoS attacks on its website. A decade ago, these attacks would take the organization by surprise, but no longer. “We have DDoS attacks, however it doesn’t affect us anymore. It’s a matter of setting your infrastructure up in a way that they can try all they want, but they will fail,” van Duijne said.
Psychosocial health for its journalists has become a growing priority for Zamaneh Media, too, one that has become more feasible to address as donors increasingly recognize its importance.
“It's easier these days to add [psychological health] to project budgets [...] to provide this kind of support to our journalists,” van Duijne said. “As a result, recently we have been able to offer access to experts in trauma. That covers both the sort of personal trauma that people hear [while reporting for us] as well as trauma-sensitive reporting.”
Honesty is a fundamental pillar upholding Zamaneh Media’s security efforts. Journalists should know that, for all of the team’s efforts to keep them safe, there is an inherent risk they take writing for the outlet, explained van Duijne.
“Be very clear what you can and cannot do,” he said. “Make sure that people have a very detailed security intake [...]. Also, [they should] be aware of what it means to work for [Zamaneh Media, and of] the risks there are for family members.”
Funding in exile
The majority of Zamaneh Media’s funding comes from grants and other external sources. These sources, however, often are inflexible and earmarked to specific reporting projects or initiatives. To diversify its funding, and allow for more flexibility in its coverage, Zamaneh Media has turned to alternate sources of revenue.
Bringing in funds through advertisements of commercial goods is impossible due to international sanctions on Iran. Reader membership and subscription models are similarly not options. Instead, Zamaneh Media has started selling advertisements to human rights organizations and news providers that value its access to difficult-to-reach audiences inside Iran. The outlet also offers Persian-English translation services.
Currently, these funding streams comprise about seven percent of Zamaneh Media’s revenue. Van Duijne hopes this grows to around 20% in the future.
For exiled journalists considering starting their own media outlets, van Duijne offered some advice: start reporting and build your identity as an exiled journalist now, and the funding will follow. “What I find a lot among sort of budding journalists is, ‘let's go after the funding first and then my track record will come and get through,’” he said. “Start building that track record [now], because that's what you will use to secure whatever funding you need to start scaling up that operation down the line.”