Blog Post

For Journalists in Exile, Staying Online Is Part of the Fight

José J. Nieves, a journalist and former ICFJ Knight Fellow, left his native Cuba in 2019 as it was growing increasingly hostile to journalists. But the threats followed him.

ICFJ to Discuss Future of News at the 2026 International Journalism Festival

The International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) will be at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia, Italy later this month, along with Code for Africa and Proto, our partners in our joint venture ICFJ+ (PLUS). We will share insights about the future of journalism – from news creators and shared services to radical collaboration and funding models. Sessions can be watched live online, and recordings will be available here.

From Rice Fields to Reporting: How One Journalist Is Documenting Gambia's Climate Crisis

As a boy, Kebba Jeffang headed to the rice fields after school to work alongside his parents in their small farming community. As a journalist, he made agriculture part of his beat in Gambia, the West African country where he grew up.

Why Some of the Best News Creators Won't Call Themselves Journalists

A little less than a year ago, at the International Journalism Festival in Italy, I asked three winners of the ICFJ News Creator Award if they identified themselves as journalists when talking to sources and audiences. They immediately shook their heads – if they called themselves journalists, they explained, no one would talk to them.

ICFJ Elliott Award: Khalid Bencherif, Amplifying Marginalized Voices in North Africa

Khalid Bencherif is a freelance investigative journalist who works on environment reporting and AI-related projects. Originally from Morocco's Tafilalet region, he is currently based in Berlin. For Bencherif, winning the Elliott Award was a big career boost. “ICFJ gave me a strong push to develop my career, it enhanced my CV crucially, which led me to get more journalism opportunities, including fellowships and grants,” he says.

The Case for Radical Collaboration in Journalism

Journalism is fundamentally about helping people understand the world and make informed decisions. And it requires meeting audiences where they are, not where we think they should be. Understanding that leads to harder questions: How do we reimagine journalism from the ground up to truly serve our communities? What should we preserve, and what should we leave behind? 

ICFJ Elliott Award: Dorcas Wangira on the Pressing Need for Global Health Journalism

Dorcas Wangira is a freelance journalist based in Kenya who covers science and health. In 2019, she won ICFJ’s Michael Elliott Award for Excellence in African Storytelling and the experience was a big career boost. “The award was a catalyst for my career growth,” she says. Since then she’s mentored other journalists.

A Journalist in Brazil is Showing Seniors How to Outsmart Misinformation, One WhatsApp Message at a Time

The most sophisticated media literacy tools in the world are worthless if they don't meet people where they are. Southern Brazil journalist Talita Rosa first encountered the phrase “fake news” in 2017, years before it entered everyday Brazilian conversation. That online course sparked her interest in fact-checking and later led her to launch "Prova Real," a pioneering verification project for the region.

A Teacher in Ecuador Found Teens Already Doubt What They See Online – and Taught Them How to Turn That Into Power

A high school history teacher and fact-checker, Gabriel Narváez, wanted to bridge his two professional worlds. His goal was to strengthen public discourse by teaching his students to question what they read and share online. Narváez sees hope in the next generation of Ecuadorians. He also sees a challenge. Even the best education can’t compete with the flood of unverified information that shapes young people’s digital lives. He worried his students didn’t care whether what they saw on social media was true. But he found something unexpected: his students were already skeptical.

How a Peruvian Journalist Turned Media Literacy Into a Community Movement

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit Peru, Lucero Ascarza found herself staring down a new challenge in the classroom: disinformation. She had started her career as a reporter for Convoca, a Peruvian-based investigative journalism organisation, digging into the Panama Papers as part of an international coalition of journalists. Later, Ascarza transitioned into education at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, where she helped the next generation of reporters learn the craft. But it wasn’t until the public health crisis — and the mistrust that fueled Peru’s anti-vaccine movement — that she realised how central the fight against falsehoods had become.