Media Helping Media (MHM) was launched in 2005 as a discussion forum for journalists. Now, it’s a journalism training hub with almost 500 free resources.
A discussion forum for independent journalism
The first version of MHM was a simple bulletin board. Journalists could post about their needs, and others could offer help. The name Media Helping Media seemed to sum up the purpose well. The image below is of the home page of MHM in April 2005, courtesy of the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. The three paragraphs in the screenshot below sums up why I set it up.
A resource hub for journalists
What became clear over the following year was that many of those posting messages were looking for training support. I discussed this with my former BBC colleague and friend, Bob Eggington. As a result, MHM evolved to become a place for free training materials to be uploaded, discussed, and refined by the community. Below is a screenshot of MHM 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 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 is an excellent fit.
Artificial intelligence (AI)
In 2025 we started using AI to create structures for some content on MHM in order to make it more accessible and useful. Find out more about how we use AI at MHM. By the autumn of 2026 there were almost 500 journalism training resources on the site.
The future
MHM continues to evolve in order to adapt to changes in journalism, technology, and audience behaviour, while preserving the fundamental principles of our profession. Our aim is simple: to equip journalists with the tools they need to strengthen independent media and inform the public.