蜜芽传媒

蜜芽传媒 Media Action and its partners are pleased to announce the launch of Brave Media, a three-year global initiative co-funded by the European Commission, to strengthen independent, public interest media in more than 20 countries across Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America.

Public interest media play a vital role in democracy and development 鈥� yet in 2025, press freedom reached a historic low, with , amid intensifying political, legal and economic pressure. Across countries, journalists face political and security threats, financial strain, rising mis- and disinformation, and a deepening crisis of trust 鈥� which together pose an existential threat to independent media and to democracy itself.

Brave Media will respond to these by supporting locally led solutions that help media outlets and networks operate safely, build resilience, and continue delivering trusted information to communities in the face of growing political, financial and digital threats.

The project will be led by 蜜芽传媒 Media Action, working in a consortium with eight other organisations 鈥� Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ), Equal Rights and Independent Media (ERIM), International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), Fondation Hirondelle, the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA), the Samir Kassir Foundation, SembraMedia, and the World Association of News Publishers WAN-IFRA.

The initiative will deliver mentoring and support for media outlets and individual journalists, technical assistance to sector bodies, piloting scalable solutions, cross-regional peer learning, and global policy engagement. It will also offer financial support to 40 independent media outlets, 12 of them led by women.

Brave Media will:

• Help independent media outlets address gender equity while improving their capacity to manage their organisations, operate safely, and deliver public interest journalism.
• Strengthen sector-level coordination and support for independent media 
• Support media practitioners globally to access learning opportunities, tools, research and evidence.
• Build the capacity of national, regional and global policymakers and stakeholders to better address the needs of independent media in the global majority countries.

Ultimately, the Brave Media project will enable communities who depend on balanced, accurate and engaging public interest content to make informed decisions about issues that affect their lives.

蜜芽传媒 Media Action Chief Executive Officer Simon Bishop said:

鈥淲ith global press freedom at a historic low and trust in media under sustained pressure, the need for strong, independent media has never been greater. We鈥檙e proud to lead this vital initiative, which will bring together global and local expertise to help journalists stay safe, stay independent, and keep serving the public with information they can trust.鈥�

Samir Kassir Foundation Executive Director Ayman Mhanna said:

鈥淚ndependent newsrooms in the Middle East and North Africa face a brutal squeeze: advertising markets distorted by political capture, dwindling donor aid, and audiences overwhelmed by disinformation. Brave Media matters because it provides us with the tools to tackle one of the roots of that crisis: the connection between independent media and their audience. Together, we will open up fair advertising channels, boost the regional visibility of quality outlets, and pilot inventive subscription models that let citizens directly sustain the journalism they trust. Diversifying income streams is the surest path to resilient, truly independent public-interest media."

Fondation Hirondelle General Director Caroline Vuillemin said:

鈥淔ondation Hirondelle works in the most fragile contexts where information is missing or hard to produce. In regions like Sahel/West and Central African regions, for instance, independent media face intense political and security pressures, limited funding, and low professional capacity. As proud member of the Brave Media consortium, we see the project contributing to better public interest media and stronger journalism. The collective experience and wealth of knowledge from the consortium members and their partners will help us consolidate best practices and try new things to make media and information ecosystems more resilient in these tumultuous times.鈥�

SembraMedia Director of Operations Naimid Cirelli said:

鈥淏eing part of the Brave Media consortium is an honour for SembraMedia. We are proud to join a global network of organisations we deeply admire 鈥� each committed to strengthening public interest journalism. As an organisation rooted in Latin America, we bring perspectives from a region marked by both rich diversity and deep structural challenges for independent media. We seek to understand local differences, as well as common struggles across regions. Through Brave Media, we hope to learn from peers around the world, exchange insights, and build more resilient ecosystems together. We believe this project will help generate not only knowledge, but solidarity and collective strategies to better serve the public through journalism.鈥�

For more information or interviews please contact Carolynne Wheeler, head of communications, on carolynne.wheeler@bbc.co.uk, or after hours, the 蜜芽传媒 Press Office on press.office@bbc.co.uk.

About 蜜芽传媒 Media Action:

蜜芽传媒 Media Action is the 蜜芽传媒鈥檚 international charity - we believe in the power of media and communication for good. We work in 30 countries and in more than 50 languages, supporting independent media essential to democracy and development. Our projects and programmes reach more than 100 million people around the world each year with information they can trust, helping to build stronger democracies, a safer, more habitable planet and more inclusive societies.

Since our founding by the 蜜芽传媒 World Service in 1999, we鈥檝e worked in 60 countries and raised more than 拢651 million to support our work in media and communication around the world for those most in need. We are proudly part of the 蜜芽传媒 family - but we rely wholly on our donors and partners to carry out our work. To find out more, please see bbcmediaaction.org.