An ode to the least known truth-tellers
Dedicated to all the fixers, especially our fallen colleague, Bogdan Bitik.
Journalism is too opaque and misunderstood. Chills gives a behind-the-scenes look at how dangerous investigative journalism gets made.
Bogdan Bitik, a Ukrainian fixer for an Italian journalist, was shot and killed Wednesday on a bridge in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson — presumably by Russian snipers. La Repubblica, the Italian newspaper the two were working for, reported that Bitik had a love for kitesurfing, and that he had a 22-year-old son who was studying to become a dentist.
Bitik’s world was not one of hatred and grenades, the paper wrote. “Vorrei tornare a volare sul mare,” he said. (I would like to go back to flying over the sea.) And that’s what he should have been able to do, if not for the ubiquitous inhumanity of humans.
The fact that Bitik chose to work as a fixer in a war zone — one of the world’s most dangerous jobs — speaks to his character and generosity. In my experience, fixers can be some of the most empathetic people in the world. They have to understand your needs and goals as a reporter and internalize them so that they can help you create the best story possible. They put you first, which can feel absurd when we’re all facing the same threats.
“An Italian journalist was wounded today in Ukraine and the fixer working with him was killed,” wrote an old friend from Rome before I’d heard the news. I immediately burst into tears.
There was no reason why, among the hundreds of fixers currently working in Ukraine with foreign journalists, any of my fixer friends should be the one who was killed in Kherson. But because I so highly value what fixers do — and have done for me in dangerous places around the world — hearing that one of their own, our own, had been killed was extraordinarily painful.
For those of you who don’t know what a fixer is or does, think of them as your person with local knowledge (at the very least). They arrange for your driver and hotels and do their best to keep you safe (and, no, they don’t — nor do any journalists or other media workers — carry guns. That would make us combatants, which we are not). For instance, in Ukraine last summer, my fixer would check daily with his military liaison as to whether the places I wanted to go were under fire. He’d also warn me off clambering upon piles of destroyed Russian armored vehicles or freshly dug graves for fear of unexploded ordnance beneath.
More than that though, he helped arrange my interviews, and, unique to this wonderful fixer, wrangled interviews with people I didn’t realize would complete my reporting.
It’s hard to express how important fixers are to those of us who work in war zones or unfamiliar places.
On one of my trips to the Democratic Republic of Congo, my fixer — affectionately known by journalists as “Jack Ryan” because of his ability to get us safely through any situation — took responsibility for my life in his (soon to be ex-) stranger’s hands. He led me through arduous interviews by overzealous government minders who debated whether to greenlight my passport and papers. He even helped me get released when we were both arrested. His foresight of warning me to tell the intelligence service that I was working on a benign story, instead of the incendiary one I was actually doing, saved both our butts.
Checking the Committee to Protect Journalists’ data (I worked there from 2005-2011 as the senior editor, so I used to edit these figures and believe strongly in the research behind them) show that 117 media workers have been killed around the world because of their work since 2003.
Unfortunately, news outlets are reporting that Bitik was not wearing a bulletproof vest on that bridge. The reporter he was working with, Corrado Zunino, was wearing his, replete with those loud, recommended “PRESS” Velcro patches. But, because the media is more valued as a target than an observer these days, this seemingly small decision to wear what we’ve all worn in conflict zones may have been their downfall — the thing that may have perversely cost Bitik his life.
For most of recent history, there have been groups of people who are considered “noncombatants” in war. Journalists, medics, civilians, chaplains and others I’m forgetting at the moment. Picture that bright red cross on ambulances in old photos of World War II. That cross gave the vehicle and the people within it a measure of protection. There were boundaries that combatants (mostly) respected. But, things have changed. A lot.
I’ve had a few conversations with my former CPJ colleague and friend Frank Smyth about all this. An expert in journalist security, he’s counseled me to not wear those identifying “press” badges. In a recent post I put on a private Facebook group for foreign correspondents, he replied to my open question of whether to label or not to label:
“Have it accessible to pull out from inside your jacket, but never display it continually,” Smyth wrote. “Not anymore, not in decades.”
A freelancer named Bennett Murray wrote:
“My opinion: get easily removable PRESS signs (i.e. Velcro). In most situations, you want them visible to prevent friendly fire from Ukrainians. But if you’re somewhere with lots of Russian drones in the sky looking for artillery targets, or if a Russian sniper potentially has a clear line of sight on you, PRESS signs only make things worse.”
My “press” tags are velcro. Whether I use them or not will depend on where I am. But I will certainly be aware of the fact that we’re not in an era anymore that respects the independence of the press.
One thing that most people don’t seem to understand is that yes, foreign correspondents like myself face danger abroad, but it is the local journalists and media workers — the drivers, the fixers, the translators — who are murdered, jailed, beaten and disappeared at much higher rates. They do work in places where they have to live among the people who don’t want the press to make their wrongdoings public. Or, like Bitik, they live and work in a place that is being bombarded by an enemy, an enemy that hopes to kill people exactly like him.
We can wear vests that yell “PRESS!” or not, we can go to the areas presumed “safe” by locals, we can go to the places that are clearly anything but, yet we can never know what the result will be.
What we do know is that no matter what we do, getting the story out of places in conflict means putting our own lives at risk.
This post is for Bogdan Bitik, a Ukrainian fixer who chose the truth over fear. And for him, and for everyone like him, I am eternally grateful.
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May Bogdan's memory be a blessing to his family. He died a hero. The general public has no idea what goes into a war correspondent's reporting. Thank you for the in depth view inside.
Stories like this inspire me in my own world to hang in with the hope that truth will filter out into the mainstream but with so much corruption and lack of care for humanity currently it feels an impossible task. So many humans over time have laid aside their desire to kite fly or whatever for these kind of truth missions and yet things aren't actually improving as a result. The story is quickly replaced with the next and forgotten in the mass of diversions. Creating awareness is only of use if change results. Maybe it is time for a different approach where the fixers hang up their boots and say I am going to inspire and create change by LIVING my fullest authentic desires. ..which may still involve writing