Learning Report 2022

Read our Learning Report 2022

Media Defence values the importance of learning and improvement. We undertake a variety of internal and external evaluations each year in order to understand the effectiveness and relevance of our programmes, ensuring that we learn from the experiences of the lawyers and journalists involved. We also do this to explore the impact of legal defence for journalists in an increasingly contracting space for media freedom globally.

Due to the sensitive nature of many of our evaluation reports, we are not able to share the full reports externally. We have compiled this Learning Report to share some key highlights and findings from 2022.

This report includes a summary of the following programmes and project evaluations carried out in 2022:

1. Strategic Output and Outcome Indicators
2. Journalist Impact Survey 2022
3. Lawyer Impact Survey 2021
4. Partner Feedback Survey
5. Interim Strategy Evaluation

2022 was the third year in our 2020 – 2024 organisational strategy  which seeks to increase our impact, ensuring more journalists and independent media have access to affordable legal support. We provided support in 188 new cases and increased the amount of strategic cases we took on. 93% of cases come from countries with ‘Difficult,’ Very Serious’ or ‘Problematic’ ranking by RSF’s 2022 World Press Freedom Index.

We had a response rate of 43% for the 2022 Journalist Impact Survey. 100% of respondents said they would recommend our support to other journalists facing legal action.

In 2022, we implemented a new partner feedback survey, to ensure that we are giving the best support possible, and regularly updating our programme to reflect the needs and requirements of our partners.

Additionally, as we reached the mid-point of our 2020-2024 strategy, we conducted an interim evaluation strategy. The interim evaluation provided an opportunity to reflect on the work of Media Defence since the start of 2020.

Read the full report here.