This resource was originally published as 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.
When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in March 2022, ROMB, a Berlin-based outlet reporting on Russia primarily through video, found itself in uncharted waters. Although the newsroom’s administrative team was based in Germany, at the time the editorial team and all of its freelancers were located in Russia.
In September of that year, when President Vladimir Putin announced “partial mobilization” of reservists, ROMB’s male journalists on staff who were still in Russia fled into exile. The language around mobilization was broad enough that it could be interpreted to apply to those outside of the reserves, placing ROMB’s Russia-based editors at risk of conscription.
“We had to relocate our team members, so as not to be drafted and sent to the war,” said Sveta Dyndykina, co-director of Vereinigung für die Demokratie, the Berlin-based NGO that manages ROMB.
The outlet's editorial team has fled to Germany, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Turkey. Today, they rely on freelancers still in Russia to generate videos on the consequences of the war on Ukraine and crackdown on freedoms, among other topics, all amid the near-complete collapse of independent media.
“We realized that there is a need: original reportage from Russia, telling the stories of ordinary Russians,” said Dyndykina.
Here’s how they’re telling these stories:
Security in exile
Since the start of the invasion, safety and security for their editors and freelancers has become ROMB’s number one concern.
“The biggest challenge was to ensure the safety of people, because it entails different aspects. When I think safety, it's physical, but it's also legal, it’s financial. And it's psychological,” Dyndykina said. “One thing we realized [was] that we need a more systematic approach that would not only cover the editorial team, but also freelancers working for us.”
ROMB consulted with physical and digital security experts to review existing protocols and develop new ones, and implement them across the organization. They gamed out scenarios that would inform guidelines for what to do when a freelancer was arrested or harmed. They put in place new guidelines for their freelancers, such as precautions to follow when reporting on an anti-war protest. The team also hired a dedicated security officer.
“When you work in Russia, there are no safe topics. Even if you think you don't need to follow the strictest protocol, the so-called law enforcement might think differently. So we do follow very strict protocols,” Dyndykina said.
Psychological health
As part of its safety and security push, ROMB’s editors prioritized the team’s psychological well-being.
“Those who stay in the country and work in the country, they feel abandoned. And those who left the country, they have their own problems,” said Dyndykina. “Some of them are depressed, some just lost someone or they’re still figuring out the country – they've already changed several countries because they can't find a safe place that would welcome them.”
Exiled media outlets should address the psychological toll of working in exile head-on, urged Dyndykina. They should create a “climate of accessibility” in which staff feel open to speak to managers about needing help, and make a list of professionals who they can turn to. “Are there psychologists who understand how to work with a journalist or people that were traumatized? Are there specialists like this that talk in [your] language?”
With the team working remotely across several countries, ROMB has started holding yearly in-person gatherings between their editorial team and “core” freelancers who regularly contribute to the outlet. Having the ability to meet in person is vital, Dyndykina said. It offers the chance to discuss and resolve any personal tensions between members of the team, as well as to address feelings of anxiety, depression and burnout face-to-face rather than over the computer.
In-person meetings also present an opportunity to keep the team on mission. “Maybe right now we face different challenges or risks [between those in exile and in Russia]. But we still do the common thing. We have common goals. We make sure that the values are the same, and the goals are the same,” Dyndykina said, adding that trust is paramount.
“The most important thing is trust. It's also how you build trust, how you would maintain this trust, how you reinforce this trust.”
Financial sustainability
Inspired by the success of social media-focused video outlets like Now This and AJ+, ROMB's goal is to report on Russia for Russian audiences through short, social-media friendly videos.
To do so, ROMB today relies primarily on grants and donations to sustain the newsroom. As its audience is predominantly in Russia, it can’t depend on advertising revenue to cover costs: YouTube, ROMB’s primary publishing platform, has halted the ability for content creators to make money off viewers inside the country.
The newsroom also produces longer documentaries that cover the stories of everyday Russians, including non-ethnic Russians from the country’s “national regions,” as they navigate living in an increasingly authoritarian state. This also serves as a source of revenue: to bolster its funding, ROMB produces documentaries for other news organizations for a fee. It’s a specific niche that the outlet’s video-centric team and its network in Russia is well-suited to fill.
For example, Channel 4 News UK recently commissioned ROMB to produce a documentary about three Russian families as they search for the truth of how their sons, husbands and brothers died while fighting for Russia during the invasion of Ukraine.
Collaborating with Channel 4 and other outlets didn’t just bring ROMB’s content to an even larger audience. It allowed them for the first time to diversify their revenue stream from non-donor sources. In 2023, 12% of ROMB’s budget was commercial projects, according to Dyndykina. It hopes to reach 20% in 2024.
“I'm approaching other huge international outlets or production companies and saying, ‘hey, we can do this, on a very high quality level. So let's do it together. Commission us, we'll do it,’” Dyndykina said.
Driving impact
ROMB’s audience remains Russians inside Russia. However, getting information to people in the country has become more challenging than ever.
Russian authorities have rolled out restrictions like their “undesirable organizations” register, which among other measures can send people who even offer interviews to an “undesirable” outlet to jail, and ban critical reporting of the Kremlin. Other outlets have been blocked inside Russia, forcing audiences to turn to VPNs.
In this environment, showing that people are watching content critical of the Russian government can be considered a measurable impact, said Dyndykina. “The easiest [impact factor] is to look at the numbers. Look at the viewership numbers, look at geography. Look at cities – not just [St. Petersburg and Moscow],” she explained. “We want to report from the [national] regions, we also want people from [other] regions which we are concerned [to read us].”
In a country where authoritarian structures make society-wide impact difficult, ROMB focuses instead on how its reporting affects individual lives. Videos produced by ROMB, for instance, have helped generate publicity around the challenges their subjects face. “We follow up with all protagonists about the changes in their life,” Dyndykina said. “We know that in several cases already [...our stories] became the life vest for our protagonist.”
Dyndykina highlighted a video series produced by ROMB on how HIV affects young people in Russia. One protagonist, a young 18-year old girl who refused to take her HIV medicine, was inspired to join a support group after the reporting was published. “She learned that there is such a thing, even in Russia, that supports teenagers — because she was participating in this video,” Dyndykina said. “It changed her life.”
For fellow journalists starting a media outlet in exile, Dyndykina recommended first cataloging what resources they have at their disposal, and reaching out to other exiled journalists who can offer advice from a place of experience.
Most of all, it’s important they identify from the start who their audience is.
“Decide in the first place who you are,” said Dyndykina. “Who are you going to report for? Are you going to report for the audience inside Russia, or do you want to work for the Russian-language diaspora?”
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