Interpreting Unfamiliar Languages

This chapter looks at the labor of interpreting unfamiliar languages. Fixers place great emphasis on their role as translators, but they echo much of the recent scholarship on translation by indicating that the task of translating and interpreting is not a passive process. The very act of standing at the crossroads between two (or more) languages places news fixers in the role of cultural mediator, demanding that they live simultaneously within more than one linguistic expression of culture. Though some news fixers certainly conceptualize translation and interpreting as the process of building a bridge, they also suggest that the act of translation is fraught with moments of disconnection and miscommunication. Sometimes, the fixer might choose to translate a journalist’s question rather differently than the journalist intended, for instance, in order to assuage the anxiety of a source or an authority figure. Sometimes the fixer might leave some of the source’s response out of the translation, or paraphrase instead of translating word for word. Throughout the entire process of interpreting unfamiliar languages, the news fixer makes active decisions about what to say and how to say it. These decisions are typically guided by the fixer’s own understanding of both the source’s cultural identification, and the journalist’s. From news fixers’ perspectives, interpreting is much more than translating words—it is also a process of actively and creatively interpreting “culture,” however complex culture may be.

Introduction

The introduction to this book begins with a detailed description of what news fixers are and how their work has evolved over time. Since the book focuses primarily on news fixing in the 21st century, the introduction historicizes the figure of the fixer, illuminating the fixer’s connections to the interpreters or guides hired by explorers, missionaries, and anthropologists of past centuries. This brief but necessary historicization is firmly rooted within the critical framework of postcolonial studies, a theoretical lens that helps me explain the deeply entrenched tradition of colonial dependence on regionally specific knowledge—knowledge that unfortunately did not prevent the misrepresentation and exploitation of the people living in these other places. The introduction then moves to an examination of the news fixers’ current role within the larger ecosystem of international reporting. Building off the rich literature found in the field of journalism studies, which examines the various elements of the labor of foreign correspondence, the introduction will show that a space must be made within journalism scholarship for the study of news fixers. What is more, the field of global journalism ethics also has much to gain from a closer examination of these locally based media employees.

Conclusion

The conclusion to this book examines the labor of relinquishing the story. Despite their active role in conceptualizing the story at its beginning and assisting with the construction of the story at every turn, fixers say that they are denied ownership of the final product in any significant sense. Sometimes, the journalist or news organization will invoke the very fact that the fixer is getting paid in order to justify the separation of the fixer from the final product of his or her labor. Some of my interviewees suggest that this especially seems to happen when a fixer takes issue with the journalist’s interpretation of what is “true” or what is most newsworthy. Once the story is finished, news fixers rarely receive substantial credit for their role in reporting the story. Some of my interviewees say that this does not bother them, while others assert that the inability to get a byline hurts their chances for upward mobility in the international reporting industries. Still, very few news fixers appear to feel comfortable with actively contesting this problem. Thus, the conclusion of this book argues that the labor of relinquishing the story is also the moment in which the fixer—sometimes willingly and sometimes unwillingly—acquiesces to his or her own erasure from the practice of international news reporting.

Safeguarding the Journalist

The chapter explores the labor of safeguarding the journalist. Fixers represent themselves as playing a vital role in keeping foreign reporters out of harm’s way, most especially when these reporters’ status as racial, national, and even gendered Others might put them at risk. Sometimes the fixer must speak on behalf of the journalist, smoothing things over with a suspicious police officer or an angry crowd. Other times, the fixer might give the journalist advice on how to safely navigate the complex sociocultural landscape, imploring female journalists to dress conservatively in certain areas, and recommending certain neighborhoods that no foreign reporter should visit alone. For these reasons, news outlets tend to conceptualize fixers as a key element of the security measures they must take to keep their journalists safe in the field. Yet, the chapter closes by showing the flip side of this labor—the possibility that the news fixers themselves will be injured or killed. Notwithstanding this danger, news organizations rarely provide their fixers with safety equipment, hazardous environment training, or medical insurance.

Conceptualizing the Story

This chapter focuses specifically on the labor of conceptualizing the story. When news fixers describe this element of their work, they tend to emphasize three things: (1) their role in anticipating and successfully getting the story that the journalist originally wants, (2) their role in suggesting new story ideas to journalists who either do not know which events to cover or whose story ideas have not panned out, and (3) their role in educating visiting journalists on the political, social, and historical background knowledge that they sometimes very sorely lack. While some might argue that this element of news fixers’ labor points to their dubious efforts at slanting the story in a “biased” direction, the chapter argues that news fixers’ narratives about conceptualizing the story instead illuminate the fact that there is rarely one, immutable story to be found. From fixers’ perspectives, the journalistic story is an effort at lending coherence to a much more complex reality, one defined by competing angles and experiences. The chapter also shows that without the news fixers’ more extensive background knowledge, visiting journalists run the risk of grossly misrepresenting the people and places being covered.

Navigating the Logistics

This chapter examines the labor of navigating the logistics. A central tenet of this chapter is the news fixers’ suggestion that logistical labor is skilled labor; this type of work requires creativity and cultural savvy. The work of navigating the logistics requires the fixer to guide journalists through challenging sociopolitical environments, helping clients to meet their deadlines while also keeping the local authorities satisfied that they are following regional laws. Sometimes visiting journalists and documentarians try to enter a country without the proper permits for their equipment or without the proper work visa. In these cases, news fixers try to find creative ways to smooth things over and gain access for their clients, despite the fact that their clients have not respected the laws of the spaces they are trying to enter. Time and space are revealed to be relative, depending on who has the most power in a given situation. In the process of helping their clients to navigate the logistics, then, news fixers are ultimately helping them to navigate competing cultural notions of time and space.

Networking with Sources

This chapter investigates the labor of networking with sources. News fixers indicate that their networks of potential interviewees are perhaps the most lucrative thing they can offer a visiting reporter. Because of this, they spend years cultivating trust with a variety of contacts, some of whom are dangerous people to displease. Parachute journalists might try to buy fixers’ local contacts, showing little regard for the years of emotional labor that led the fixers to build trust with people who might pose a threat to both the journalist and the fixer. Once the journalist arrives and the news fixer draws upon his or her contact list, another problem emerges: the fixer must ensure that the client does not upset the valuable contact by showing cultural ignorance or insensitivity. This can become a complicated dance of playing to both sides, something that many of my interviewees say is necessary in order to keep the contact for future jobs, while also helping the journalist get the interviews needed to tell the story.