By: Staff Writer
September 12, 2025
Journalists in the Caribbean and Central America are displaced and working in exile a new report reveals.
The report, “Displaced Voices: A Snapshot of Latin American Journalistic Exile 2018-2024,” compiled by researchers from the University of Costa Rica (UoC), said that over 900 journalists from around the region have been displaced by the ongoing unrest in their respective countries.
The report said that Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba are the countries from which the most journalists flee, accounting for 92 percent of displacement in the region. They are followed by Guatemala, Ecuador, El Salvador, Haiti and Mexico. Then come Colombia, Bolivia, Honduras, Peru, Chile, Paraguay and Argentina. Finally, Belize, Costa Rica, Panama, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Uruguay and Brazil are countries where no forced departures of journalists were recorded.
“We noticed that [the forced displacement of journalists] was a growing phenomenon and that it had affected several countries, but a regional perspective was needed,” said Oscar Jiménez a researcher at UoC. “This is like a first attempt to take a more global look at the phenomenon in Latin America.”
The report also noted the two main reasons for the international displacement of journalists are political persecution and threats from organized crime or corrupt actors.
“We noticed that [the forced displacement of journalists] was a growing phenomenon and that it had affected several countries, but a regional perspective was needed,” Jiménez said. “This is like a first attempt to take a more global look at the phenomenon in Latin America.”
The figure of 913 displaced journalists is an estimate obtained from a methodology that included interviews with organizations, online surveys, and focus groups with journalists in exile. However, Jiménez said the real number is likely higher.
“We are absolutely certain that there are more than 913 [displaced] journalists,” he said. “Many journalists do not report [their departure] to any organization, and the States do not keep an inventory of those who leave or those who enter.”
“El Salvador, which in December 2024 was estimated to be a country with moderate emigration, has moved up one notch in our categorization, because in the last three months alone, the Association of Journalists of El Salvador (APES) has indicated that approximately 40 or 50 communicators have left that country,” Jiménez said.
The report identified the main consequence of the forced displacement of journalists to be the diminishing of citizens’ access to accurate and timely information within their own countries. The majority of a group of 98 journalists in exile who responded to a survey for the investigation mentioned that leaving their country meant the creation of a news vacuum, Jiménez said.