Myanmar journalist broadcasts stories from exile, refusing silence

When Myanmar's military seized power in 2021, journalists became targets overnight. Nay Nay, a reporter and news presenter from Rakhine state, made the wrenching choice to flee with her partner—also a journalist—and cross into Thailand. But leaving the country didn't mean leaving the work behind.

From exile, Nay Nay continues reporting for Lay Waddyi FM, a radio station serving Myanmar's diaspora. When she applied for the Feminist Storytelling Grant through Exile Hub, she initially planned to document her own story: a lesbian couple navigating journalism under military rule. But as she talked it through with colleagues, something shifted. The scope widened. The urgency deepened.

Amplifying the women on the ground

"As we gradually discussed the idea, we decided to present the resilience of female journalists across Myanmar who are working in war-torn areas, rather than focusing solely on our own story," Nay Nay said.

That conversation became "Female Journalists in the War Zone," a podcast featuring women reporters working in Rakhine, Karenni, Kachin, and Sagaing—regions where conflict has made journalism both essential and dangerous. The podcast doesn't sanitize their experience. It broadcasts their challenges, their small victories, their exhaustion, their refusal to stop.

Nyein Nyein, one of the journalists featured, wasn't formally trained when she fled Myanmar. She learned on the job, supported by her partner, producing radio programs while still figuring out the craft. "A feminist," she says, is someone who "stands in solidarity with and supports the capabilities of women." That's what she's doing now—and what Nay Nay is doing by amplifying her voice.

The cost of this work is real. Nay Nay faces online harassment from nationalist extremists, financial instability that forces her into part-time jobs, and the constant weight of knowing that the women she's reporting on are living under conditions she escaped. She carries this quietly, relying on mentors and colleagues to share the load.

But she keeps going. "I simply want to be a useful person somewhere in the media industry and a person who does not poison the public," she said. It's a modest way of describing work that's anything but modest—the act of refusing to let women's stories disappear in the fog of conflict, even when telling them costs you safety, stability, and home.

As Nay Nay's podcast reaches listeners across the diaspora and beyond, it's creating something that didn't exist before: a public record of resilience from people the world rarely hears from directly. That archive matters. Those voices matter. And the woman broadcasting them from exile, on a shoestring budget and against considerable odds, is proving that they always did.