Journalism ‘fixers’, hyper-precarity and the violence of the entrepreneurial self

Abstract

The figure of the so-called journalism ‘fixer’ has received overdue academic attention in recent years. Scholars have highlighted the role played by fixers in international news reporting, a role historically obscured in the mythos of the Western foreign correspondent. Recent research has produced useful insights about the work done by fixers in ‘the shadows’ of the international news economy. However, it has also tended towards a domestication of the role, where the local ‘fixer’ finds their place in a collaborative relationship with those officially consecrated as ‘journalists’ from elsewhere. This article presents a critical theoretical analysis of this functional role, building on the image of the fixer as a kind of ‘entrepreneur’. Rather than interpreting the latter designation as a source of empowerment or agency, we approach it as a euphemism for the hyper-precarious and exploitative underpinnings of fixer-labour. Our argument draws on different theoretical sources, including Foucault-inspired work on the entrepreneurial rationality of the neoliberal self, Bourdieu’s notion of symbolic violence, and Rancière’s concept of politics. The theoretical argument is supported by the first author’s reflections of working as a Pakistani-based ‘fixer’ during the U.S-led war on terror.

Friends like these: A shift in labour, security and the normative ideals of conflict journalism

“…There is by now a well-developed literature focusing on the growing precarity of the (generally Euro-American) war correspondent (Stupart, 2021a;Ashraf and Phelan, 2018). Palmer (2019) discusses the 'industrial' or financial precarity of freelance work exacerbated by what she terms 'socio-political precariousness' arising from how journalists and their work are perceived by conflict parties.…”

“…Those who work more closely with NGOs risk increased visibility; those who don’t cannot benefit from Western gatekeepers’ access to economic and other support. Ashraf describes the situation of such fixers as ‘hyper-precarity’, exacerbated by neo-colonial and exploitative conditions (Ashraf and Phelan, 2018: 3), compounded by their absence both from international journalism practice and from prominent academic and journalistic discourses of such practice.…”

Straddlers not spiralists: Critical questions for research on fixers, local-foreign news work, and cross-border journalism

“…10.For example, a recent study from Ashraf and Phelan (2022) does much to contribute to theoretical understandings of fixer precarity and indeed exploitation, but their intervention does not push beyond the normative topics outlined by Kotišová and Deuze (2022).…”