Volume 5 Issue 1 , Research Note
Tome 5 numéro 1, Note de recherche

Chris Arsenault

Abstract

With declining newsroom budgets, outlets are reevaluating approaches to international coverage. Journalism scholars have also been paying more critical attention to the role of “fixers,” a commonly-used term for media workers hired to assist visiting foreign correspondents, typically in the Global South. Based on a decade of frontline foreign reporting experience and a review of emerging scholarship, this research note offers practical approaches for organizing international reporting collaborations. Ideally, these would involve formal partnerships between a visiting correspondent and local journalist with shared bylines. When this is not possible, foreign correspondents could consider prioritizing collaborations with non-journalists to avoid extractive reporting and source duplication, ensuring visiting journalists, local collaborators and audiences are getting their desired outcomes.

Keywords: foreign correspondence, world news, fixers, journalism collaborations, international media collaborations, media workers

Résumé

Avec les budgets des salles de rédaction en déclin, de nombreux médias réévaluent leurs méthodes de couverture de l’actualité internationale. Parallèlement, les chercheurs en journalisme s’intéressent de plus en plus au rôle des « fixeurs » : un terme couramment utilisé pour désigner des collaborateurs médiatiques engagés afin d’assister les correspondants étrangers, principalement dans les pays du Sud. Fort d’une dizaine d’années d’expérience de terrain en reportage international et d’une analyse des recherches émergentes sur le sujet, cette note de recherche propose des approches concrètes pour structurer des collaborations journalistiques à l’étranger. Idéalement, ces partenariats prendraient la forme d’une collaboration formelle entre un correspondant en visite et un journaliste local, avec un partage équitable des signatures. Lorsque ce type de partenariat n’est pas possible, les correspondants étrangers pourraient envisager de privilégier des collaborations avec des acteurs locaux, afin d’éviter un journalisme de type extractif et la redondance des sources, tout en veillant à ce que les journalistes en visite, les collaborateurs locaux et le public obtiennent les résultats recherchés.

Mots clés : correspondance étrangère, actualités internationales, fixeurs, collaborations journalistiques, partenariats médiatiques internationaux, professionnels des médias

RESEARCH NOTE | NOTE DE RECHERCHE

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‘Fixing’ international reporting in Canadian media: Practical frameworks for more equitable collaborations

Chris Arsenault

 

INTRODUCTION

Stepping off a plane into the chaos of Caracas to cover a Venezuelan presidential election, I knew I needed a local reporting partner. As a relatively fresh staff correspondent with Al Jazeera, I had covered Latin America, but never the country with the world’s largest oil reserves (Viscidi, 2016). Venezuela’s political divide, and the desire from headquarters for fresh sourcing, meant the story needed to be covered from the streets rather than by phone or inside airconditioned offices. Competing rallies drawing hundreds of thousands for each of the main presidential candidates made that possible. When searching for a reporting collaborator with local knowledge, there was no obvious guide at the time for exactly how to conduct these relationships fairly and effectively. Management’s requirement to start filing by Day 2 and continue with near daily stories in the lead-up to the 2012 vote and its aftermath, left me grasping for a way forward.

A co-worker’s family member based in Caracas had posted a bulletin board notice at a local journalism school asking for applications for a potential reporting collaborator. The network’s Caracas bureau had also recommended a candidate based on his connections, a simultaneous translator who often worked at diplomatic events. At the time, the instinctive goal for choosing a collaborator was straight-forward: find someone competent, available, well-connected and ready to work. Likewise, that person needed to be getting what they wanted out of the arrangement, whether that was just money, bylines or, potentially, both. Actionable guidelines for structuring these kinds of relationships – often forged quickly in high pressure situations – were not clear to me. Like many journalists facing similar circumstances, I muddled through as best I could, hoping to treat everyone respectfully along the way.

The goal of this research note is to offer some practical options for correspondents working in the field for international reporting collaborations in light of recent critical academic scholarship on the role of fixers or news collaborators. This guidance is informed by my own experiences in international reporting and a review of current research. Before moving into academia, I spent a decade as a correspondent based in countries including Qatar, Brazil, Italy, and Canada, reporting from five continents, often with the help of local news collaborators or fixers. My aim is to bridge journalism theory and practice with some tangible options.

The research note begins by outlining the growing responsibilities of fixers in global reporting, while defining some key terms. It then introduces some of the critical scholarship around fixers and international reporting collaborations before offering options for journalists working in the field. The research note then provides some critiques of the proposed collaboration options based on existing literature, along with examples of how different types of international relationships can work in practice.

Ongoing newsroom debates about ‘fixers’

International reporting is among the most expensive branches of journalism (Arsenault, 2025; Hamilton, 2016). In an era of declining newsgathering budgets, foreign correspondents and the bureaus they work from have been cut down by most Canadian news organizations, following international trends (Lowman, 2024; Willnat & Martin, 2020). An analysis published by The Hub estimated there were fewer than 60 fulltime reporters covering world affairs across the Canadian media landscape in 2024, with 45 of that remaining cohort employed by the CBC (Lowman, 2024). Reductions in staff correspondents have led media organizations to seek alternative approaches to newsgathering, contributing to increased scrutiny in journalism studies on the role of fixers, who are sometimes local reporters working for international correspondents on short contracts or, in some cases, simply local residents (Borpujari, 2019; Kotišová & Deuze, 2022; Plaut & Klein, 2019; Santos, 2022). Valued for their language skills, contacts, local cultural knowledge, and problem-solving abilities, “fixers” play a key role facilitating and translating for many international journalists (Palmer & Fontan, 2007; Plaut & Klein, 2019).

The term “fixer” itself is contested, with many preferring nomenclatures such as “collaborator,” “producer,” or “reporting partner” to describe the activities of local workers hired by foreign correspondents (Plaut & Klein, 2019; Santos, 2022; Witchel, 2004). Typically, a fixer helps organize and translate interviews outside of a correspondent’s home country while navigating local cultural realities and coordinating logistics. The work of fixers has been an understudied pillar of international journalism through the 20th and early 21st century (Palmer & Fontan, 2007). The role was introduced into Western popular culture in the 1984 film The Killing Fields (Arjomand, 2022; DePaul, 1996). The film depicted how a New York Times correspondent’s investigative reporting on U.S. military coverups was only made possible by his Cambodian fixer, Dith Pran (DePaul, 1996; Plaut & Klein, 2019).

From wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, to land grabs in Mali, shady oil deals in Guyana and current violence in Gaza, fixers or news collaborators have been mainstays of foreign correspondence following the Second World War, if not earlier (Arsenault 2015; Arsenault, 2025; Arsenault & Le Billon, 2022; Palmer & Fontan, 2007; Harb, 2024). For fixers, it is not always a positive relationship. Their complaints can include a lack of bylines or other reporting credits for the work they do in organizing interviews and conducting research, and a generally extractive relationship with their better-funded foreign (normally Western) counterparts (Kotišová, & Deuze, 2022; Plaut & Klein, 2019). In this relationship, an outside journalist can mine the sources and insights a local reporter has developed for years, pay a cash fee for several days of work with no benefits, and then receive the bylines and related accolades (Palmer & Fontan, 2007; Witchel, 2004).

In some cases, local reporters working as fixers say their outside paymasters miss crucial nuance in their coverage due to a lack of local knowledge or, worse, burn bridges with sources cultivated by the local journalist, potentially putting the local reporter at greater professional or security risk (Plaut & Klein, 2019). Based on a global survey, roughly 30% of people who work as fixers report being journalists themselves, with the other 70% working in a variety of other industries (Plaut & Klein, 2021 p. 1702). Particularly in insecure regions, including parts of the Middle East, fixers can act as the eyes and ears for international journalists who cannot do the reporting safely themselves (Witchel, 2004). This is true in Canadian media coverage of the Israel-Hamas war beginning in 2023, for instance, where the CBC has relied on Gaza-based freelance videographer Mohamed El Saife to provide quotes, footage and context, due to CBC staff correspondents’ inability to access the enclave (Jabakhanji, 2025).

The small but growing body of scholarship on the relationship between journalists and fixers has focused on best practices for international collaborations between comparatively well-funded reporters in the Global North and their colleagues in the Global South, and strategies for reimagining the relationship (Plaut & Klein, 2019; Santos, 2022). Underscoring increased attention on the issue in recent years, events discussing the role of fixers were held at the National Press Club in Washington in 2020, and a special conference linking journalists and collaborators at the Global Reporting Centre in Vancouver in 2023. These workshops stressed the need for collaborative relationships between local and international journalists in pursuit of a story, rather than the tradition of information, contacts and logistical support flowing one way, and money flowing the other (National Press Club, 2020; Global Reporting Centre, 2023).

PRACTICAL APPROACHES FOR INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATIONS

The broader literature on fixers or news collaborations is clear that there is no one-size-fits-all model for how this should work (Online News Association [ONA], n.d.; Plaut & Klein, 2019). Different reporters and collaborators have different needs, goals, and interests (Arsenault, 2024; ONA, n.d.). Two possible options for how to conduct these collaborations are offered here. These are not designed to be definitive and there are undoubtedly cases where other structures or arrangements could work better (ONA, n.d.). As one option, whenever logistically possible, cross-border collaborations should involve equal credit on bylines and an equal division of labour for newsgathering between local and international journalists.

When equally-shared story credits between foreign and local correspondents are not logistically viable, due to factors such as scheduling conflicts, budget pressures, or non-compete clauses for local reporters best equipped to assist with the story in question, I suggest engaging non-journalists as reporting partners. This approach broadens sourcing options, insights, and background context beyond collaborators who have journalism skills, and draws instead upon translation, policy, and subject-matter experts who have minimal previous experience in traditional reporting. This research note provides examples of different kinds of stories where both models of collaboration have been leveraged for frontline reporting in the context of new scholarship on the issue. It then addresses some critiques of this guidance for approaching international news gathering partnerships.

Cost critiques of traditional foreign correspondence

Legitimate critiques about extractive or neocolonial relationships between foreign correspondents and local fixers or journalism partners aside, such relationships pose larger practical and financial questions for reporters operating in the post-COVID Zoom era. Why bother spending thousands of dollars and contributing to climate change via international air travel to deploy a journalist to another country, when a local reporter could do the required interviews, gather footage, and complete the rest of the field reporting? The two journalists can produce the piece together virtually if the foreign correspondent’s skills in story-framing or production are needed to convey or contextualize the information for their audience. Personally, when I have collaborated with a local journalist for international reporting, I have used this approach, meaning equal credits on bylines and workload distribution, including for: stories on milk shortages in Venezuela; an analysis of an underground aquifer in Kenya in light of fresh water shortages; and a story about how changing diets in much of the Global South are leading to increased obesity pegged to a United Nations food agency report (Arsenault & Heshmatpour, 2012; Arsenault & Migiro, 2015; Arsenault & Moloney, 2015). Under this approach to collaborations, both reporters can review edits and the final product ahead of publication to preserve context and source access. For many newsrooms, this is a more effective use of resources than the traditional fly-in model.

There are, of course, cases when a Canadian news agency would want a Canadian correspondent to cover the news, as opposed to a local stringer on contract. This is especially true for broadcast, where audiences have come to expect reports from trusted individual correspondents (Cushion, 2009; Murrell, 2009) and for stories which require specific framing and focus for a national audience (Arsenault, 2021a). Costs for deploying a correspondent vary for different assignments and locations; a 12-day print coverage deployment in Latin America in 2024 by the author, for example, cost roughly $7,000, including flights, local transportation, accommodation and payment for a local photographer (Arsenault & Le Billon, 2024).

Collaborating with non-journalists

For many international stories, particularly complex investigations, I have relied on collaborators with no previous relationship to journalism. In Mali, that meant working with a former security contractor who understood the country’s internal dynamics, geography, and political context; in Venezuela, a simultaneous translator who had long-standing professional ties to government and business elites in the area (Arsenault, 2015; Arsenault, 2013). Neither of these workers had any interest in sharing bylines; in fact, they were adamant in remaining anonymous to preserve future professional relationships. They both had excellent sources who had not been previously tapped by foreign reporters, and strong understandings of local political realities. I collaborated in similar fashion in Mexico, Guyana, Cuba and Cambodia—working with academic researchers, local photographers and others. These demographics added unique sources, insights, and deliverables to the final reports (Arsenault, 2016; Arsenault, 2018; Arsenault, 2021b; Arsenault, 2011).

While not altogether novel, this approach to reporting collaborations provides a practical roadmap for international journalism practice. First, working with people who have no previous journalism experience can make it easier for correspondents to find original sources who have not previously been in the press (Blacksin, 2022); some journalists have a habit of recommending sources who they know or have dealt with before as the path of least resistance (Arsenault, 2024; Berkowitz, 2019; Hertzum, 2022; Hope, 2019). Second, under this approach, both the journalist and the collaborator are getting what they want and have agreed to get out of the relationship, despite the latter’s disinterest in journalistic credit or bylines. As the Online News Association notes in its ethical guidelines on best practices for relationships between journalists and fixers, one of the few guides from a professional media association, “The most important thing is to make clear to short-term and long-term contract workers exactly how we see our obligations to them” (ONA, n.d.). This approach to collaboration utilizes the skills, sources, and insights of different parties without duplication or taking advantage of local reporters (Arsenault, 2024; Arjomand, 2022; Murrell, 2021). Figure 1 offers a flow chart on how an individual reporter or news agency can determine which of these two options for collaboration best suits the story they are covering (Arsenault, 2024).

 

Figure 1. Fixer selection guide for decision-making for journalists and newsrooms (Arsenault, 2024).

 

Critiques of collaborations with non-journalists

The most obvious critique of this approach to collaborations is that it represents an oblique way of reinforcing unequal power dynamics in fixer-correspondent relationships. Some could consider it a defence of a status quo that has been rejected by most scholars and many journalists (Kotišová & Deuze, 2022; Santos, 2022). One may ask: is this approach not just an underhanded method for foreign correspondents to duck accountability, by hiring people without formal journalism experience who arguably have less negotiating power in securing their legitimate economic and professional interests? In short, equitable outcomes depend on the specific individuals involved and what they want from the relationship. Even scholarship critical of current relationships recognizes that the “fixer operates within uneven power dynamics, but is not without agency” (Plaut & Klein, 2019, p. 1700). Prioritizing workers whose agency and outside professional experience makes them disinterested in receiving reporting credits works well within this concept of professional agency.

Roughly 75% of fixers reported having another profession, according to a major international survey of news collaborators, which found fixing contributed just a moderate portion of respondents’ overall employment income (Plaut & Klein, 2019). This results in individuals who are uninterested in reporting credits, holding “multiple professional identities, and thus access to multiple worlds”— in other words, ideal candidates to provide new, diverse sources and insights for visiting journalists (Plaut & Klein, 2019, p. 1705). Moreover, the goal of any coverage, foreign, domestic, or geographically hybrid, should centre on adding value for the audience (Mellado & Gajardo, 2024). Having reporting collaborators with sources, understandings, and insights that have not been previously published can provide audiences with unique perspectives.

A second critique might contend that the idea of reporters working with non-journalists in the field is hardly revolutionary. Taxi drivers, teachers, NGO staff, local hustlers, and others with a knack for navigating the streets, have often been tapped by foreign correspondents to work as fixers in a pinch (Murrell, 2014; Oputu, 2014). The approach offered in this research note, however, differs in that it supports a counterintuitive framework for proactively seeking collaborators without journalism experience or interest, defying most of the existing scholarship on journalist-fixer relationships (Kotišová & Deuze, 2022; Santos, 2022).

When using a proactive approach to collaboration with non-journalists, it is imperative the visiting journalist does not allow biases or pre-conceptions from the fixer to impact source selection or story framing; it is not uncommon for non-journalists to have strong opinions about what makes a worthwhile story and who should be consulted (Arsenault, 2024). Ideas, suggestions or insights, unto themselves, are not problematic. But relying on a fixer with no journalism experience places additional onus on the correspondent to have well-vetted story frames and source ideas so a fixer’s outside business connections or personal political views do not affect the final output.

CONCLUSION

There is no easy solution for visiting reporters to develop accurate story frames and requisite background knowledge; it comes through experience, immersive reading about the places you are covering and, ideally, at least basic local language skills (Fisk, 2007). This broader approach to collaboration is also fluid enough to include local reporting partners on equal footing with bylines and credit when the situation presents itself, meaning travel can be reduced without compromising output quality. This guide to international reporting collaboration options does not purport to address historical power imbalances between North and South or between precariously employed journalists and staff correspondents. However, by actively seeking collaborators with unique insights and sources outside of journalism, when joint bylines on stories with local reporters are not feasible, it does offer a strategy for international journalism practice. It has shown how these optional guidelines—either sharing equal credit and bylines with reporters in the Global South or relying on collaborators with no previous journalism experience—can help improve coverage and lead to more equitable partnerships.

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Chris Arsenault is Chair of the Master of Media in Journalism and Communication Program (MMJC), Faculty of Information and Media Studies, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada. Email: carsen6@uwo.ca

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