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Impact Publications

15 Years of Media Defence: A Visual Timeline

For 15 years, Media Defence have provided crucial legal support to journalists, citizen journalists, cartoonists, and independent media worldwide. As the sole organisation dedicated solely to this cause, we've made a significant impact: spanning 117 countries, we've supported over 1,300 press freedom cases, and trained 270 lawyers to defend journalists globally. Explore our Visual Timeline…

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…

Lawyer Impact Survey 2022

About the survey Read our Lawyer Impact Survey 2022 In 2022, we carried out our third Lawyer Impact Survey to assess the impact of our support to lawyers. We support lawyers with both our emergency defence and our strategic litigation programmes. Through these programmes, we offer pro bono legal support, as well as financial support…

A Year in Review: Our 2022 Annual Report

The report Click here to read our 2022 Annual Report Media Defence has launched its 2022 annual report, marking the end of a pivotal year for freedom of expression. The year 2022 has presented us with a worrying decline in press freedom. In response to their work, journalists around the world have faced legal harassment,…

Our Journalist Impact Survey 2022

“If i didn’t have Media Defence’s support, I would have been condemned .” - Journalist supported by Media Defence in 2022. In 2022, we carried out our sixth annual Journalist Impact Survey to look at the longer-term impact of our support to journalists. We designed our Journalist Impact Survey to understand the quality of our…

Lawyer Impact Survey 2021

About the survey In 2021, we carried out our second Lawyer Impact Survey to assess the impact of our support to lawyers. We support lawyers with both our emergency defence and our strategic litigation programmes. Through these programmes, we offer pro bono legal support, as well as financial support for lawyers in order to cover…

Media Defence has been working to support journalists facing legal threats since 2008. We value the importance of learning and improvement, and we dedicate time and resources to monitoring and evaluating our projects and programmes in order to learn, improve and grow. We strive to ensure our evaluations are robust, efficient, useful, accurate and innovative.

Since 2008

We have provided legal help to hundreds of journalists and media outlets around the world.

92 cases received technical legal support in 2021

In addition to financial aid, 92 of our cases received technical legal support.

66% case success rate

To date, we have a 66% case success rate, and 80% of the journalists we help continue to report after their case has ended.

466 cases in 61 countries

In 2021, we supported 466 cases in 61 countries around the world.

66% case success rate

To date, we have a 66% case success rate, and 80% of the journalists we help continue to report after their case has ended.

466 cases in 61 countries

In 2021, we supported 466 cases in 61 countries around the world.

466 cases in 61 countries

In 2021, we supported 466 cases in 61 countries around the world.

98% of the journalists we help would recommend our support.

To date, our legal support has helped journalists avoid over 300 years of detention and nearly £500 million in damages.

80% of the journalists we help continued to report.

Media Defence has been absolutely critical in helping me get the most updated Commonwealth jurisprudence in free speech litigation, whether it’s on contempt of Court, the law on harassment, or sedition.

Co - Founder of The Online Citizen, Singapore

For asking people to laugh at the government, I was handcuffed, detained, thrown into the lockup. But I kept laughing and encouraging people to laugh with me. Why? Because laughter is the best form of protest.

Malaysian Cartoonist

We were able to take stances that we wouldn’t have been confident about if Media Defence hadn’t been backing us.

Bytes for All