Exiled journalists live two realities. One in their relatively safer new home, where life’s ephemera and daily survival demand their presence and attention. The other is the painful longing for an imperfect home and for the friends, family, and colleagues who may be threatened not only by a regime’s daily course of action, but in an exacerbated threat environment because of an exile’s activities.1 The stress of this bifurcated reality is often hard for individuals to manage, but the exiled journalistic role many choose to continue to play is critical to help with democratic change in the home country.

Exiled journalists perform a role that is greater than informing a public back home of injustices and corruption.2 They are effectively opposition forces to their home regimes. They are also lobbyists abroad and change agents who increase international pressure. They are witnesses and provide testimony to foreign judicial systems and multinational organizations focused on the demand for human rights, dignity, and regime transparency. As a result, they make themselves, their relatives, and others associated with them global targets. In a more globalized world with a regime’s instantaneous access to information and to an individual’s activities, those threatened by exiles have found ways to silence those exiles.