Media Helping Media (MHM) was launched in 2005 as a discussion forum for journalists. Now it’s a journalism training hub with more than 450 free resources.
A discussion forum for independent journalism
The first version of MHM was a simple bulletin board where journalists could post about their needs and others could offer help. The name Media Helping Media seemed to sum up the purpose well. Below is the home page of MHM in April 2005, courtesy of the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine.
A resource hub for journalists
Over the following year the site evolved to become a place where free training materials could be uploaded, debated, and refined by the community. Below is a screenshot of MHM in the site at the end of 2006, again courtesy of the Internet Archive.
News, training, and debate
The site continued to grow — as did its library of free training articles. MHM also began covering news about media freedom and media development, and by late 2007 it had become a blend of three elements: news on media freedom, free training resources, and a forum for discussion on independent media issues. The image below is of the site at the end of 2007. Image courtesy of the Internet Archive.
Focus on free training resources
Three years later, in 2010, we decided to stop covering news and instead focus on building up our stock of free training resources. At that point there were about 100 articles on the site.
From then on we kept adding to the free resources until in 2018 when the Fojo Media Institute at Linnaeus University in Sweden — a long-standing collaborator with MHM on projects across Africa, Asia, South-East Europe, and the Middle East — offered to host the site and incorporate it into its wider training resources. Fojo’s mission is to strengthen free, independent, and professional journalism, so the partnership was an excellent fit.
Artificial intelligence (AI)
In 2025 we started adding edited AI-generated structures to some of the content on MHM in order to make it more accessible and useful. Find out more about how we use AI at MHM. Currently there are more than 450 journalism training resources on the site.
The future
MHM continues to evolve in order to adapt to changes in journalism while preserving the fundamental principles of our profession. Our aim is simple: to equip journalists with the tools they need to inform the public and strengthen independent media.