“Translating” Russia: News Fixers and Foreign Correspondents in an Era of Political Uncertainty

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article examines the work of news fixers based in Moscow, in hopes of better understanding the risks and challenges that they face as they “translate” Russia for foreign journalists. Drawing upon the theoretical concept of “cultural translation,” which understands interpretive work as vastly exceeding the merely linguistic register, this study will analyze the complex—and sometimes, risky—processes through which Moscow-based news fixers render Russia intelligible to their foreign clients. Using qualitative, in-depth interviews with 16 news fixers, the study explores news fixers’ perceptions of their clients’ representations of Russia, as well as investigating the fixers’ feelings about the risks they face in the field. The article finds that news fixers in Moscow sometimes find their clients’ representations of Russia to be reductive and, in some cases, biased. In order to combat this problem, fixers say that they try to “translate” Russia for their clients, filling in the gaps in foreign journalists’ knowledge about the culture. They ultimately say that while their work can subject them to political and financial risk, they do not believe themselves to be in the same level of physical danger as that faced by journalists working in conflict zones.