The Dark Side of News Fixing: The Culture and Political Economy of Global Media in Pakistan and Afghanistan

Description

This book provides a local journalist’s perspective on a four-decade long regional contribution to global news production. It shows how the fixers’ risky news pursuits made possible for global media to access distant regions and dangerous caves on Pakistan and Afghanistan borders, causing unprecedented deaths of the local reporters in the context of the U.S-led war on terror. The book analyzes the fixer as a role in its relationship with militarization. It is not a coincidence that fixers become valuable to commercial media only during the height of violence or crises. Emerging under conditions of scarcity or war, the value of this role, in turn, is intrinsically tied to the fear of extinction. It is this vulnerability or perceived expendability― imposed by the need to find work―that binds fixers in a symbiotic relationship with global market and global war. This book, then, serves as a vantage point from which one can clearly see the connection between the regional wars and commercial media, as well as local journalists’ transformation into daily wage earners in a global media shift toward neoliberalism. Cover Front Matter Half-title Title page Copyright information Dedication Contents List of figures About the author Acknowledgments Chapter Int-null Introduction The Local Relations of Global News Production The “Fixer”: Marx’s Proletarian The Local Journalist: The Three-Tier News Production Model Methodological and Theoretical Applications Outline of the Book Chapter One Laying Bare the Malala Story Molvi and Malala: The Story of Swat The Destruction of Schools: Taliban Reviving Colonial Tradition What If the Documentary Wins an Award? Neoliberal Logic: Local Violence, Global Messiah Did the NYT Put Malala in Harm’s Way? Faceless Wars? Of Course Not A “Fixer”: An Emotional Labor in Corporate Media The “Fixer’s” Reflexive Experience: An Overview Conclusion Chapter Two The “Fixer”: Journalism’s Dark Secret “Fixer”: Anatomical Metaphors and Subjugation Global News Production: Changing Dynamics The Parachute Journalist and the “Fixer”: A New Labor Formation Global News Production: International Journalist, Local Proletarian Precarious Labor: Consumer Markets and Flexible Labor The Ideal Labor and the Terror “Enterprise” Materiality of the Local Body: An Overview The “Fixer”: A Hyper-Precarious Existence Chapter Three Pashtuns as Potential “Fixers”: News Work in a State of War Imperialist Games: Stateless Existence Local Journalism in Colonized Space Frontline State: Neoimperialism, Ethnicity and Media Return of the Great Game: Media in Frontline State The National Media: Local News Production History Matters: Pashtuns under British Colonialism Local Journalists Caught in a State of Global War Conclusion Chapter Four The Afghan Beat: Journalism as War The Afghan Jihad: The Zia Era Struggle against State Oppression Imperialist War: Reporting Empowers the Disempowered District Reporters: War, Solidarity and Social Exclusion Capitalism and Jihad: Extremism at Large A Seismic Shift in Local Journalism Pashtun Reporters: Workers in the Imperialist Tradition Domesticated Resistance Strategic Depth Theory: Military Fallacy or Total War? Conclusion Chapter Five The “Fixer”: Local Labor, Global Media Media Circus and al-Qaida’s Escape The Pashtun Belt in the Grip of the War Frenzy “Fixers”: Children of a Lesser God How Did Local Reporters Become “Fixers”? “Fixer”: A Key to Local Knowledge Network Unethical Journalism: News Practices Tabloid Press/Journalism Shuttling between Supply and Demand Reporting “Fixer” Field Position: Logistical or Editorial Labor? Structural Compulsions: Working Precariously “Fixer”: The Contradiction of Capital News “Fixing”: Daily Wage Journalism Chapter Six Buying Low, Selling High: The Hunt for bin Laden The US Attack: Bin Laden—the Terror Prince The District Reporters’ Hunt for al-Qaida Post-attack Pack Journalism: Hunting for al-Qaida News The Tora Bora Fiasco Chance: The Canon of Conflict Reporting The Shifting Relations of News Production On-Demand Reporting The al-Qaida Revolt Divided Bodies, Siphoning Labor News Contamination: The Cost of Labor Extraction Global Media Shifting Priorities The “Fixer”: An Embodiment of War Chapter Seven Impunity: The New Normal Privatization: The Irony of the State Global Terrorists as “Special Guests” Local Coverage, Global Implications Trivializing Terror: The Redefinition of News Practices News Primacy over Reporters’ Security Kalusha Operation: Journalists Caught in the Cross Fire The First Casualties of the War Family: The Achilles’ Heel Terrorism Got Mainstream: Military, Militants and Media Video Journalist: A Hypervigilant Labor Function Impunity: The Neoliberal Normal Commercialism and Hyper-Precariousness: The Double Whammy Global War on the Local Chapter Eight Reporting with Marx Labor and Capital: Marx’s Theory of Exploitation Capitalist Temporality: Proletarian Insecurity Making Sense of Global War The “Fixer”: A Hope in Haze A View from “Somewhere” versus a View from “Nowhere” End Matter Appendix Notes Bibliography Index