Overview

"News ""fixers"" are locally-based media employees who serve as translators, coordinators, and guides to foreign journalists in unfamiliar terrain. Operating in the shadows, fixers' contributions to journalism are largely hidden from us, yet they underpin the entire international news industry: almost every international news story we read today could not be produced without a fixer. Indeed, without fixers' on-the-ground skill and intimate knowledge of a territory, journalists would struggle to document stories unfolding in countries outside their own. Despite this, however, fixers remain one of the most under-protected and undervalued groups contributing to the production of news. Targeted by militant groups and governments, even by their neighbors, they must often engage in a precarious balancing act, bridging the divides between foreign journalists and the people who live and work in fixers' own communities. In this book, Lindsay Palmer reveals the lives and struggle of those performing some of the most important work in international news. Drawing on interviews with 75 fixers around the world, Palmer is the first researcher to illuminate fixers' own rich narratives, offering a glimpse of how difficult it is to play the role of cultural mediator, both in and out of conflict zones. A news fixers' is not simply administrative; rather, the fixer's engagement with the story is editorial and, more importantly, cultural. Each task that a fixer takes on is a creative effort at mediating between different lived experiences of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, religion, politics, community, and nation. Ultimately, The Fixers offers a different picture of international reporting than most people are accustomed to seeing: one that is more collaborative, more contested, and more fluid in its understanding of ""truth"" in a global, cross-cultural context."

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9780190680824

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Reviews

The Fixers makes a major contribution to research about the international news. With rich data and sharp analysis, it dissects the often-hidden role of 'fixers' who work behind the scenes to make the news possible. Palmer shows the significance of fixers not just as news producers and cultural mediators-but also as an illuminating topic for research. Studying news production from their perspective teaches us a great deal about the global news system itself. * Mel Bunce, Reader in Journalism and Director of the Humanitarian News Research Network, City, University of London * Lindsay Palmer's book is unique and intriguing because it studies an area hardly understood by journalism and media scholars: perspectives from news 'fixers,' or those who do important support work for international journalists. The book is contemplative and nuanced in presenting fascinating stories about the fixers and how they influence global news on a daily basis. I highly recommend this book for those who are interested in understanding global journalism practices. * Shakuntala Rao, author of Media Ethics and Justice in the Age of Globalization *

Lindsay Palmer's book is unique and intriguing because it studies an area hardly understood by journalism and media scholars: perspectives from news 'fixers,' or those who do important support work for international journalists. The book is contemplative and nuanced in presenting fascinating stories about the fixers and how they influence global news on a daily basis. I highly recommend this book for those who are interested in understanding global journalism practices. * Shakuntala Rao, author of Media Ethics and Justice in the Age of Globalization * The Fixers makes a major contribution to research about the international news. With rich data and sharp analysis, it dissects the often-hidden role of 'fixers' who work behind the scenes to make the news possible. Palmer shows the significance of fixers not just as news producers and cultural mediators-but also as an illuminating topic for research. Studying news production from their perspective teaches us a great deal about the global news system itself. * Mel Bunce, Reader in Journalism and Director of the Humanitarian News Research Network, City, University of London *

The book is not a collection of reporters' bar-room 'WIWIs' (when I was i...). It is an attempt to define the complex nature of a little-understood feature of the media. The book is divided into five sections: conceptualising the story, logistics, networking with sources, interpreting unfamiliar languages and safeguarding the journalist. * Alan Philps, Chatham House, UK, International Affairs * The Fixers makes a major contribution to research about the international news. With rich data and sharp analysis, it dissects the often-hidden role of 'fixers' who work behind the scenes to make the news possible. Palmer shows the significance of fixers not just as news producers and cultural mediators—but also as an illuminating topic for research. Studying news production from their perspective teaches us a great deal about the global news system itself. * Mel Bunce, Reader in Journalism and Director of the Humanitarian News Research Network, City, University of London * Lindsay Palmer's book is unique and intriguing because it studies an area hardly understood by journalism and media scholars: perspectives from news 'fixers,' or those who do important support work for international journalists. The book is contemplative and nuanced in presenting fascinating stories about the fixers and how they influence global news on a daily basis. I highly recommend this book for those who are interested in understanding global journalism practices. * Shakuntala Rao, author of Media Ethics and Justice in the Age of Globalization *

Author Information

Lindsay Palmer is Associate Professor of Global Media in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She studies the labor of international reporting from a qualitative, critical perspective. Before her career in academia, she worked as a television news producer.

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