Murrell, Colleen – Foreign Correspondents and International Newsgathering: The Role of Fixers , Routledge Research in Journalism New York: Routledge. 2015, ISBN: 978-0-415-73335-9 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-84847-1 (ebk)

In international newsgathering, especially in war zones, audiences believe it’s all about the role of the foreign correspondent – but actually it’s not. There are some others who play a major role in the process of newsgathering and production – they are called ‘fixers’.

In her book Foreign Correspondents and International Newsgathering: The role of fixers, Colleen Murrell, a former international journalist and now an academic, comprehensively and thoroughly addresses the role of the ‘fixers’. The study is constructed on the basis of case studies and in-depth interviews with fixers and foreign correspondents. Murrell points out to the lack of knowledge about the role ‘the fixers’ play. She comments:

The correspondents and media companies all know this, but this has not been common knowledge for the public or for most scholars conducting research in international news (p.155).