Reporting Global while being Local

Local Producers of News for Distant Audiences

Saumava Mitra, Chris Paterson, Saumava Mitra, Chris Paterson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000388442
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Media & Communications Industry
• Index: Business

International news has long been studied and understood as produced by outsiders – foreign correspondents working in exotic, international locales. This book challenges this established view by putting the spotlight on the insiders working in their own countries producing news for international audiences.

Western male foreign correspondents who report from areas affected by crises and conflicts for an 'audience back home' have long stood in as visible metaphors of international news production. But the understanding of who produces international news is starting to shift as scholars come to take into account the often-invisible role played by locally based, non-Western news-workers who have always been part and parcel of international news production. The roles and responsibilities of these professional, specialised locals within the global flow of news have only increased as falling news industry revenues have meant reductions in non-local staff in foreign news bureaus. Available research shows that the involvement of local journalists and fixers, as well as NGOs, as sources of news and information in international news production is marked by economic, socio-cultural and practice-related tensions. To shed light on these growing yet relatively less investigated changes happening in international news-making, this book brings together the latest of studies conducted on this form of journalistic labour around the world.

This book will contribute to both the breadth and depth of our future understanding of local news-work that benefits distant audiences, and also help cement the place of such journalistic work as a vital topic of analysis in its own right.

The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Journalism Studies.

Fixers as Entrepreneurs

Colleen Murrell

ABSTRACT

This article examines how fixers and local journalists are increasingly organising among themselves to manage working contracts with foreign correspondents venturing into their countries. This study first reflects on the traditional modus operandi of foreign correspondents and fixers, as covered in the work of authors such as Hannerz, Maxwell-Hamilton, Murrell and Paterson et al. It then moves on to update the narrative of one group of fixers, from being ad hoc hires to becoming media entrepreneurs. This study also explores the growing number of online organisations that are turning this long-standing newsgathering role into a trading profession, that is opening up beyond the news media into other areas of practice such as film-making and business. It explores a range of new media organisations from large transnational ones to boutique operations, and gathers data from some of the key people behind these changes. As local fixers, producers and journalists remain uniquely exposed to violence and danger in the course of their jobs, this study also explores if any changes are being implemented to try and ensure better safety standards.

Introduction

Local journalists, producers or fixers have played a part in Western foreign correspondence for as long as there have been despatches sent from abroad to the readers back home. However, being largely “back room” people, assisting the out-front reporters, their work remains largely hidden from view and is thereby little understood. The majority of fixers remain to this day temporary workers who can be picked up and dropped by foreign correspondents at a moment’s notice. They often lack power and agency in their media work and are forced to accept sub-standard employment conditions. Nonetheless, a growing number are adopting a more entrepreneurial stance, and are advertising their skills on websites and are forming their own companies. This research project is interested in finding out the reasons for moving in this direction and the consequences of this change to fixers’ lives.

The term “fixer” has become a handy catch-all name for the person hired overseas to assist in the job of news gathering being carried out by a visiting reporter. For several years now, there have been ongoing debates in reporting, fixing and academic circles as to whether or not this term is pejorative, and is thereby under-selling the importance of the role. The suggestions that perhaps the terms “local producer” (Murrell 2009), “local journalist” or “journalist-fixer” (Klein and Plaut 2017) would be better substitutes have been canvassed, but not adopted. Given that the term “fixer” is still in widespread use, and is employed by so many fixers themselves for the purposes of advertising their skills, experience and availability, this article will use the term on the understanding that fixers are crucial players in the pursuit of international news gathering, as illustrated by the growing number of research projects discussed below. In scholarly work the role of a fixer has been defined as a locally-employed media worker, who facilitates the coverage of news stories by a visiting reporter in both a logistical sense (for example related to travel, permits, filming, and location access), and in an editorial sense, through teamwork in the generation of story ideas, contacts, translation, analysis and interviewing (Murrell 2009).

Literature on Fixers

Fixers have only been researched as a separate group of media workers in the past decade. If you examine the copious literature on foreign correspondents (books, articles and journalists’ autobiographies), you mostly find only passing references to the work of fixers. In the official history about international newsgathering, their voices are not readily heard and correspondingly they appear to have little power. In Mark Pedelty’s ethnographic work (1995, 211) about foreign correspondents in San Salvador, he referred to fixers as mere “logistical aides” who helped the elite staff reporters with their newsgathering. For Hannerz (2004, 154), fixers were a “polymorphous” group, who tended to use the role as “a stepping stone to a journalistic career.” Erickson and Hamilton (2006, 40) understood them to be the “support systems” for travelling reporters. This same “assisting” frame was employed by Tumber and Webster (2006) in a book chapter devoted to fixers, which did not assign to them a significant role in generating ideas or original news stories. For Palmer and Fontan (2007, 12) fixers were mostly translators and interpreters with good local contacts. They concluded that their hiring was a “necessary evil” during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, due to the danger for Westerners and their lack of Arabic language skills. They decided that employing fixers weakened “the traditional model of the foreign correspondent” (2007, 22). However, Iraq was not unusual as a dateline for hiring fixers, as the traditional foreign correspondent has been employing fixers as a default production process for decades. What was unusual about Iraq, in the years following 2003, was that the situation became so dangerous that the role of fixers expanded, and they started conducting the interviews and news gathering themselves, sometimes even in place of the foreign correspondents (Murrell 2010).

In a doctoral thesis and associated articles that examined the working relationships and news production teamwork between fixers and foreign correspondents (Murrell 2009; 2010; 2011) it was found that fixers had considerable editorial sway in story generation and analysis that was often being poorly reflected in either journalists’ or scholars’ accounts. This qualitative research project examined the power differentials and the teamwork of both parties to this newsgathering game. Drawing on field theory and the acquisition of cultural capital by Pierre Bourdieu (1986, 243-244 and 248; Benson and Neveu 2004) this research found that the short and long-term agency and power resided with the correspondents, and that fixers could gain only limited and short-term profit from the working exchange. Whereas ground-breaking or exclusive stories could lead to significant cultural capital for reporters (promotions, book deals, entry to the well-paid lecture circuit, etc.) fixers were only as good as their last job and their names were rarely attached to the stories published or broadcast (Murrell 2009).

This project posed mirrored questions to both fixers and correspondents about their production practices, in order to compare and contrast the different ways that they worked and understood their roles. Through applying a grounded theory approach, what emerged from the data were findings about their respective levels of cultural capital, power and agency. Data from interviews carried out between 2007 and 2008, revealed that contacts for fixers were still held securely in reporters’ own notebooks or in company databases (in the case of UK organisations). These databases - particularly those from the BBC and ITN - recorded details about the fixers’ locations, languages, political and religious beliefs, and personal circumstances (Murrell 2011, 165-177). Reporters and producers who worked with fixers were tasked with updating the databases, following their latest experiences “on the road.” The correspondents could give free rein to their thoughts about these people, including musings about their abilities, skills, personalities and whether or not they were “difficult” about certain stories or in particular situations. These internal accounts would then affect fixers’ chances of securing further employment when a reporter from the organisation next went abroad. These databases were open for perusal by any employee on the newsgathering side of the media companies concerned, however, there was no way for fixers to access or correct such accounts. If a fixer had been employed many times over the years, especially in conflict zones, then they might have a quiet word with a foreign editor to try and pass on any problematic issues they experienced while working with staff members. However, this could easily land them in the “too tricky to work with” category for future jobs.

The fixers who were interviewed about how they found work (Murrell 2011, 177-180) said that they mostly got jobs through contacts made during previous fixing work, via the apparent serendipity of being in the right place at the right time, or by proactively going to hotels favoured by foreign correspondents and asking around for jobs. Once they had built up a solid reputation, then they could get further jobs through “word of mouth” or recommendations passed on from one reporter to another. When a particular story or location was running hot, or was in an enclosed place where fixers were thin on the ground, then pay and conditions were good, and skilful fixers were fought over by keen reporters (Murrell 2011, 175). Several correspondents admitted that they would not pass on the contacts of really good fixers, except to their own organisations or very close friends. Ironically therefore, fixers’ work prospects could be diminished if they were very good, but they might never know the reason for this paucity of opportunity. Even today, most fixers continue to be ad hoc hires, taken on for particular stories, and engaged on a daily basis. A lucky few have retainers for a set number of days per year to work with particular companies. Others get hired longer term, such as by the BBC or CNN in Baghdad in the years following the 2003 war, as it can be safer for all parties to have longer term and trusted employees in ongoing dangerous situations (Murrell 2010).

The favourite type of fixer cited by western journalists, is a local reporter (Murrell 2011, 164-177 and 205-211). Correspondents believe this type of person understands the nature of the job and the local scene, tends to be proactive and well connected and is highly adaptable. Fixers generally agreed with this interpretation. A fixer from Bali, Dr. Darma Putra, explained this succinctly:

Because my background is journalist I have a similar kind of mission, vision, or let’s say it with the big word, ideology. So, I’m a citizen of journalism, of the world called journalism. I’m not a Balinese or not an Indonesian in that case. So, whatever’s new, whatever is news then we always share it. […] There’s only one journalism. (Murrell 2015, 137)

Another major finding (Murrell 2011, 2013) was that successful fixers, the ones who were chosen most regularly by reporters, tended to be globalised citizens and “people like us.” They spoke English, bartered for jobs, were persistent and were increasingly knowledgeable about the international media market and their part in it. These are all personality traits that are inherently entrepreneurial.

Research undertaken in the past few years has further emphasised the fixers’ perspectives on their role in newsgathering. Paterson, Andresen, and Hoxha (2012, 117) examined the role of fixers in “constructed news coverage,” related to the declaration of independence by Kosovo in 2008, finding that the participation of young fixers, “allowed the story to move beyond the confines set by those orchestrating it.” Palmer (2018) interviewed 21 fixers in a project that concentrated on the cultural differences between fixers and correspondents, and explored their expectations and experiences during the newsgathering process. In a large global study, Klein and Plaut (2017) surveyed 435 news gatherers and asked if they considered themselves to be journalists, fixers or “journalist-fixers.” Data from the respondents, showed that 167 identified as fixers or journalist-fixers and 19 in the latter category participated in follow-up interviews. Their findings showed that “underlying tensions” simmered and were related to the unequal power dynamic that often remained hidden during their work together. One of their foremost findings was that, “While safety was foremost for correspondents, a larger concern for fixers was money.” Another major preoccupation was by-line credit, as most correspondents claimed to rarely give fixers credit, with most fixers saying they would like to have credit. The importance of the editorial aspect of the fixing job is underlined by correspondents in their stated preference for working with fixers who are local journalists (Murrell 2011). This is borne out in a series of interviews with fixers called “Unbylined,” from the website “Roads & Kingdoms.” According to “local colleague” on the site, Borpujari (2016), the name “fixer” does not do justice to the role of someone who works as a local journalist, and has to hand over their hard-earned resources to the parachuting correspondent:

My contact list that I have accrued over the years. My convincing for interviews for your story. My...