Case Study: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty achieves real-time, uncensored reporting in countries without a free press with Dataminr

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Uses Dataminr to Tell Stories in Countries Without a Free Press

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), a Prague‑based public service media organization reporting in 27 countries in 23 languages with 700 full‑time journalists and 1,300 freelancers and reaching 40 million people weekly, faced the challenge of monitoring fast‑moving events (notably Russia’s full‑scale invasion of Ukraine) and protecting reporters in regions without a free press. To gain earlier visibility into breaking events and social‑media activity while enabling safer, often remote reporting, RFE/RL turned to Dataminr and its real‑time alerting solution, Dataminr for News.

Dataminr ingests signals from more than 500,000 public sources (social media, the dark web, IoT, audio feeds, etc.) to deliver alerts within seconds or minutes; using Dataminr, RFE/RL was often first to report incidents such as the bridge explosion at the Ukraine‑Moldova border, uncovered Iranian‑sponsored cyberattacks across the Balkans, and learned of a South Korean fugitive held in Serbia. Those real‑time alerts from Dataminr gave RFE/RL quicker verification windows, improved public safety and trust, optimized newsroom workflows so reporters could focus on investigations, and became a critical reporting tool across its 27‑country network in under a year.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

Maja Zivanovic

Belgrade Bureau Chief