In countries without free press, why don't newspapers simply move overseas?

Question

In regions without free press, or where press are under constant threat of arrest, why don't media organisations move their organisation outside the country on which they report?

For example, if Hong Kong's Apple Daily moved to any of a number of other countries, they would not be easily raided.

Is this a 'legacy' effect, where long-standing newspapers and media organisations have too-strong regional ties, or perhaps simply that the technology required didn't previously exist (and if it is just these factors, have newer, more modern media organisations started to offshore their work to protect themselves) or is there more to it?

Answer 1

1. A news company is mostly its employees. Who also have a personal life. Or who might be subject to travel restrictions. When you move your operation to a different country, then you will have to leave most of the employees behind and hire new ones. That means losing all your expertise, all your operational routine and all the personal contacts between reporters and sources.
2. Don't underestimate the importance of proximity. Even in the 21st century. When your market niche is to report about what happens in Hong Kong, then you need people in Hong Kong. How else would you perform investigative journalism? Sure, you could have a hand full of personnel who are on-site while most of the editorial work happens in your back-office somewhere else. But one of the first things oppressive governments do when things start to get tense is to kick out or black out foreign journalists. And without a local office serving as a "safe house" for them to retreat to, they are even more vulnerable.
3. The regime itself might not let you. Having a couple of "free" media outlets around looks good for your international democracy score. So if you leave, they will likely replace you with a new media outlet. One which won't have any of your journalistic integrity which annoyed the regime so much and none of the few freedoms you fought so hard for.
4. Being the target of government suppression can actually be good for business. Each time the Apple Daily was raided by the Chinese police, their number of readers soared upwards. This is called the Streisand Effect. When people hear that "they" want to suppress some knowledge, then people get even more interested in that knowledge.

Answer 2

Source: I am an American living in China.

Philipp's answer is great, but I'd like to add something about VPNs.

As many of you know, a VPN allows you to (at least most of the time) bypass whichever firewall which might be in the closed country. This will allow you to access any news sites that are open in other countries' internet.

There is a HUGE problem with doing this: legality and accessibility of VPNs.

Legality: In China (I can't really speak to other countries), they are not always legal. They are used by many foreigners, and some local Chinese people, but the government can penalize use of them.

Couple of stories (if anyone has a link I'd appreciate it):

1. (hearsay) A foreigner normally uses a VPN, but all of a sudden, his phone will not connect to the internet at all. He has plenty of data, and he's paid his phone bill. The government contacts him and asks him to surrender his phone temporarily. They return the phone, and to his surprise his VPN(s) have been deleted.

2. A Chinese national (via their VPN) hears another Chinese national discussing the Government in a negative light on Youtube, and contacts the authorities. The reporting national gets fined a large amount.

3. A foreigner put a VPN on a Chinese national's computer, and the national downloaded pornography (possessing pornography is illegal in China) onto his machine. The Chinese government put the foreigner into prison.

These are not necessarily isolated incidents, but something that happens quite frequently.

Accessibility: the Chinese government recognizes the utility of VPNs (particularly software engineers and people learning English for example), and there are "government approved VPNs" that are free and that people can use. However, these report the web activity to the government, and still block certain websites defeating the point of a VPN.

The common western owned VPNs are "allowed", but are not approved for that reason. One has to be careful at times when using one, and the service tends to not work as well when there is a political event involving China or its allies.

So yes, some people use VPNs but it's pretty rare. Most people do not, and have no interest in hearing news that is from outside China. I would assume in other closed countries, it's relatively similar.

Answer 3

Yet another concern is funding the newspaper. A regime can easily punish companies inside the country attempting to pay for ads in the paper, and outside companies won’t be interested. Meduza cited this as a major threat to their continued operation.

Answer 4

Sometimes they do move abroad. One example I'm familiar with is a Russian newspaper based in Latvia called Meduza which was created as a consequence of the Russian government trying to shutdown a former opposition news website called Lenta.ru:

Following a March 10, 2014, Lenta.ru interview by Ilya Azar of Andriy Tarasenko from the Right Sector's Kyiv branch, Roskomnadzor immediately issued a press release on March 12, 2014, in which Lenta.ru was implicated in violating numerous Russian media laws, information laws, and laws to counter extremism because the interview allowed a leader from the group to appeal to Ukrainian citizens to support pro-Ukraine causes and that the article contained a link to Dmytro Yarosh's March 1, 2014 appeal.[9][11] Since the warning by Roskomnadzor was the second issued in a 12-month period, Roskomnadzor would ask the courts to terminate Lenta.ru's mass media license. Both the BBC and The Economist called Russia's response to Lenta.ru as censorship.

On March 12, 2014 the owner, Alexander Mamut, fired the Editor-in-Chief Galina Timchenko and replaced her with Alexey Goreslavsky. 39 employees out of the total 84, including Director-general Yuliya Minder, lost their jobs. This includes 32 writing journalists, all photo-editors (5 people) and 6 administrators. The employees of Lenta.ru issued a statement that the purpose of the move was to install a new Editor-in-Chief directly controlled by the Kremlin and turn the website into a propaganda tool. Dunja Mijatović, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, referred to the move as a manifestation of censorship.

Galina Timchenko, together with a team of around 20 journalists who resigned from their jobs at Lenta.ru, started the new internet newspaper Meduza.

Lenta.ru still exists but currently its a pro-Putin newspaper. Meduza continues to be harassed by the Russian government despite being located abroad:

In June 2019, Meduza journalist Ivan Golunov was arrested by Russian police for claimed drug offences. Colleagues and friends of Golunov said they believed the charges to be fabricated, motivated by his investigations into corruption. Following a public outcry, Golunov was released, and five police officers were fired and later arrested.

On April 23, 2021, the Russian Ministry of Justice designated Meduza as a 'foreign agent'. In response, the European Union rejected the decision, saying this restriction "goes against Russia's international obligations and human rights commitments".

So while Russian authorities can no longer raid the headquarters of Meduza, they can still arrest any of their journalists operating out of Russia. Potentially they could also block Meduza from being accessed within Russia without a VPN, which would deal a major blow to their popularity. So unfortunately the mere act of relocating abroad does not mean you can operate with impunity.

Answer 5

Electronic media and radio

Newspaper business needs rapid and widespread local distribution, which can be easily controlled locally. However, with the advent of electronic media, the distribution principles are quite different, perhaps more equivalent to radio.

If we look at historical examples of circumventing restrictions on news, Radio Free Europe comes to mind, which was broadcasting towards USSR during the Cold War.

In a similar manner, we have seen some Russian media moving their offices to neighboring countries and distributing news electronically - for example, after a crackdown on opinions posted in Lenta.ru, a number of their employees moved out of Russia and formed an electronic news media Meduza, distributing news electronically from offices in Riga; explicitly listing the reason for their location as somewhere where the Russian government won't prevent their work. Similarly, there are journalists attempting to curate and distribute independent news in Belarus from neighboring countries through e.g. Telegram channels.

However, news really needs data from on-site reporters, especially if the "restricted data" aren't news about what's happening in the wider world (as was the focus of Radio Free Europe) but local news about social and political events, local business and corruption, etc. An "offshore" agency then needs to rely on local people, for whom it might be dangerous to collaborate as they might be subject to restrictions and/or detained if the local regime wants to.

Answer 6

There appears to be some evidence that media organisations can/will/do move from places they report on if threatened, or if they expect to be threatened (noting that Winandmac Media's move from Hong Kong seems to be somewhat preemptive):

Winandmac Media, an IT website that had covered Hong Kong news since 2010, said it had already moved its operations and financial resources out of Hong Kong due to the dramatic deterioration of press freedom in the city.

Another example I came across is a Mexican Journalist:

I have to left my country, ironically, to be able to keep doing my job.

A note: media organisations may tend to self censor rather than physically move.

• More examples here