When the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in 2021, press freedom in the country plummeted. Music disappeared from airwaves, women vanished from the news, and political criticism became a punishable act.
Hundreds of independent journalists fled the country into exile, and those who remained risked imprisonment by the Taliban or even death while covering Afghanistan’s unstable security situation.
Amu TV was born out of the collapse of Afghanistan’s media landscape, and is one of the most influential exiled media outlets serving Afghanistan today. By broadcasting via satellite from the United States, the channel has bypassed Taliban censorship and reached millions of viewers inside the country, offering Afghans a rare space for uncensored news, political debate, entertainment, and public dialogue.
Amu TV was founded in August 2022 by journalist Lotfullah Najafizada, the former director of Afghanistan’s first 24-hour news channel, Tolo News. Najafizada left Afghanistan in 2021 following the return of the Taliban.
“We wanted to make sure the Afghan people’s access to information remained intact,” Najafizada said in an interview with the National Press Club Journalism Institute. “Everything that’s banned in Afghanistan, we put it on our TV channel.”
Programming that reflects a silenced public
Amu TV operates with a hybrid structure designed to navigate Taliban restrictions. The outlet employs about 40 full‑time staff overseas and works with more than 50 independent journalists inside Afghanistan, many of whom remain anonymous for safety.
“We combine access to information from journalists on the ground with the freedom to report from overseas,” Najafizada said. “That’s how we bypass the Taliban’s firewall.”
Because Afghanistan does not operate its own satellites, the Taliban cannot fully control what information enters many Afghan homes. As a result, Amu TV broadcasts through foreign satellites into Afghanistan, allowing the station to reach audiences across the country who lack independent information from government channels.
The channel broadcasts 24 hours a day, offering news, current affairs, entertainment, and cultural programming that Afghan audiences can no longer access from Taliban-approved sources. Daily news is broadcast in Afghanistan’s official languages, Afghan Persian and Pashto, and airs alongside children’s cartoons, Turkish soap operas, a women-focused show, and late‑night music, which is banned under Taliban law.
One of its most popular programs is Jan-e Gap, a live call‑in show that offers a real-time snapshot of Afghans’ sentiments on politics, daily life under Taliban rule, economic struggles, and social and cultural issues. Jan-e Gap represents a rare forum for public dialogue in Afghanistan, Najafizada said, adding that the show can receive 6,000 WhatsApp calls in a single hour.
“It’s not just us talking to our audience,” he said. “It’s them using our platform to talk to each other.”
More than half of Amu TV’s coverage is on political topics, Najafizada said, including investigations that have created concrete impacts inside Afghanistan. In one recent case, a whistleblower inside Afghanistan’s Ministry of Health provided documents showing corruption by a senior official. After Amu TV aired the report, the Taliban dismissed the official.
“It shows impact,” Najafizada said. “But it took weeks of work to get that information.”
Security challenges
Even from exile, Amu TV reporters face significant security challenges. Taliban authorities have harassed relatives of journalists and targeted Amu TV’s journalists inside the country, Najafizada said. “They go after our families, they go after our relatives, they harass us, they confiscate our properties,” he said.
These threats extend beyond Afghanistan’s borders. The Taliban now have diplomats stationed in Europe, for example, raising concerns of transnational repression targeting exiled journalists. “They have embassies in Europe. They have diplomats in Europe. In Germany in particular. So it’s really, really difficult for us to navigate that,” Najafizada said.
The Taliban “hate our content,” Najafizada continued, stating that the outlet prioritizes its editorial independence in spite of outside pressure and threats. “This is what free media is,” he said.
Inside Afghanistan, safety concerns are even more acute. Many of Amu TV’s local reporters work anonymously to avoid retaliation, and in some regions even basic reporting practices can put journalists at risk. Meanwhile, women journalists cannot appear on screen, cannot interview Taliban officials, and are barred from press conferences.
As the international community has turned its focus away from Afghanistan to new conflicts such as Ukraine and Iran, keeping attention on the country has become difficult, too. “We are a small operation compared to what we used to run [at Tolo News],” Najafizada said. “Advocating for Afghanistan is difficult because nobody cares.”
Funding and financial instability
Funding is a major obstacle, as Western companies often do not see a commercial market in the Afghanistan-focused outlet, Najafizada said. The outlet instead relies heavily on international grants, but donor support is inconsistent and often short‑term.
Commercial revenue from Afghans inside the country is nearly impossible, too. Afghan businesses fear advertising on an independent outlet out of fear of Taliban retaliation. “Businesses cannot put ads on our channel because the Taliban will go after them,” Najafizada said.
Najafizada strongly believes exiled media must eventually commercialize to stay afloat. “Exiled media has to be, at the end of the day, commercialized,” he said. “It cannot remain as sort of a cause‑driven outlet, because funding is so unstable.”
Today, Amu TV is experimenting with new revenue models beyond grants, including digital revenue and revenue gained from diaspora‑focused content.
Advice for exiled journalists and media outlets
Najafizada said exiled journalists face unique pressures ranging from displacement to financial instability and security threats. Exiled journalists also struggle with trauma after leaving their country and careers behind.
“The biggest threat to exiled journalists is overcoming personal trauma,” he said, stressing that professionalism must still remain at the center of exiled journalist’s work. “Your own story has to remain inside, because your job is to tell other people’s stories.”
Najafizada encouraged exiled journalists to see exile as a circumstance, not as the defining aspect of their identity. “Before you are an exiled person, you are a journalist,” Najafizada said. “That identity must stay with you no matter where you are.”
For exiled journalists considering developing their own outlet, Najafizada warned that launching an exiled newsroom requires more than just passion. “Setting up a business has to be beyond emotions,” he said. “Think twice. See if you have the tools, the resources, and the audience.”
His advice for journalists working in exile includes:
- Stay professionally grounded. Exile does not exempt journalists from fairness or balance. “You still have to do all the checklists when you do a story,” he said.
- Separate trauma from journalism. Personal pain cannot shape every story. “You can’t turn your own story into news every day,” he said.
- Evaluate resources before launching. Assess funding, staffing, and audience reach before creating a new exiled media outlet.
- Avoid emotion‑driven decisions. Exiled journalists must resist the urge to make newsroom decisions based on emotion. Najafizada emphasized that strategy, resources and identifying audience needs should guide editorial and organizational choices.
- Measure real impact. Audience engagement should guide long‑term decisions. “If 6,000 people call you in an hour, that becomes your duty,” he said.
- Prioritize alternate revenue sources. Najafizada said exiled media outlets must eventually diversify their revenue, as donor funding is unstable and cannot sustain long‑term operations.
Tags: exiled media