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July 09, 2007
Fixers on the Front Lines
Last week I attended a panel discussion (video below) on the accomplishments and plight of "fixers." These are natives of war-torn areas who help Western journalists by - in the words of one participant on the panel - finding hotel rooms, briefing them on the local customs, ethnic groups, and political situations, guiding them through unsafe neighborhoods, setting up interviews, translating during interviews, translating transcripts and articles, and much more. As George Packer said, "Without my fixer I would not have been able to get anything done in Iraq."
Fixers and "stringers" are controversial. The purpose of the panel was to raise awareness of the danger Iraqi journalists face at home: militias and insurgents target the along with doctors, judges, publishers, and anyone who contributes to a stable civil society in Iraq (and their relatives). The vast majority of journalists killed in Iraq have been locals. Although they can make a case for refugee status, our government has allowed few of them to repatriate to the US. Does the US have an obligation to help people whose work with our journalists put them and their families at risk? Especially now, as the NYTimes blithely admits that its advocated troop withdrawal will probably result in a bloodbath, how does the plight of those who sided with us fit into our national debate about immigration?
At the same time there have been cases of local journalists fabricating stories for Western journalists, as part of disinformation campaigns intended to give advantage to terrorist movements. In light of these, and the insidious nature of terrorist infiltration in general, how do we tell who is an honest journalist?
The panel only addressed the political refugee problem, which is real and serious. Most readers of this blog spend their time in ideological neighborhoods where George Soros (whose Open Society Institute funded this event) and Middle Eastern fixers merit suspicion, but viewing this panel will introduce you to brave and conscientious war correspondents who have risked death and exile to report honestly. And you can help resettle more Iraqis to the US.
In addition to Packer (staff writer for the New Yorker and author of The Assassins’ Gate: America in Iraq), panelists were Bob Deitz and Elizabeth Witchel of the Committee to Protect Journalists, photojournalist Micah Garen (who had been kidnapped in Iraq with his fixer), Pakistani journalist Majeed Babar, Iraqi journalists Ayub Nuri and Nour al-Kal, and Lisa Ramaci-Vincent (widow of murdered journalist Steven Vincent and founder of the panel's co-sponsor, the Steven Vincent Foundation).
Many of these "fixers" were already local journalists and some transitioned from helpers to journalists in their own right as they assisted their Western colleagues. Tales of comradeship, loyalty and bravery were told on this panel, a striking example being the relationship between Steven Vincent and the woman he called "Layla" in his book In the Red Zone.
Nour and Steven were both kidnapped and shot - he was killed, she survived, escaping to Jordan, and eventually was admitted to the US through the tireless efforts of Vincent's widow, Lisa (chronicled in her testimony before before the Senate Judiciary Committee Regarding The Plight of Iraqi Refugees, magazine articles, radio interviews, and on this blog among others). Lisa didn't know until the last minute when exactly Nour was arriving, and in a cosmic coincidence it turned out to be the day of the panel. So Lisa picked up Nour at the airport, they went to visit Steven's grave, and then to the panel. When you watch Nour, remember that this articulate calm woman had just arrived that afternoon after a 10 hour flight to a strange country, after being in hiding for a year and a half.
Unlike a well-prepared journalist, I had neglected to delete everything I had downloaded from my digital camera the night before, so as I filmed I ran out of memory and had to frantically dump older items to make room for more video. Thus the films are a bit choppy and there are some abrupt transitions. But I did capture about 85% of it in these six videos.
Judith | 07/09/07 at 12:12 AM | Categories: - The Fourth Estate
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