Stringers pick up slack
By Global Journalist Staff Posted Jun 30 2009
For more than a decade, NBC News chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel had seen images of destruction and war in the Middle East, but on Mar. 23, 2006, instead of reporting on the tragic tales of others, he became part of the story.
Engel’s stringer, Ashraf, was kidnapped in Baghdad.
In his book “War Journal,” Engel describes Ashraf as “just a kid” and “like a brother.” The young Iraqi stringer and the world-renowned Western correspondent were a dynamic reporting team. Ashraf, traveled to places Engel could not while Engel wrote and edited the stories, captivating audiences worldwide.
Just after 5 p.m. on Mar. 23, Engel got a call.
“Ashraf?” he asked.
The voice at the end of the line replied, “Ashraf is our guest…”
Engel went on to describe the panic and guilt that settled in after he discovered his stringer had been kidnapped. Negotiations began immediately when the abductors threatened to kill Ashraf if Engel did not pay hundreds of thousands in cash.
But after four exhausting days, the correspondent began to suspect Ashraf’s abduction was a scam.
“It seemed amateurish,” Engel wrote.
The next time the kidnappers called, Engel told them not to call back. Shortly after the last call, Ashraf showed up at the bureau unharmed and calm.
Engel and security experts believe Ashraf faked his own kidnapping.
“I’d been betrayed…but there was no time to spend lingering on emotions or betrayal,” Engel wrote. “I had to get back to work.”
These types of situations are conceivable not only at NBC News, but at nearly every U.S. news organization around the world. Stringers, for better or worse, have become an integral part of the fabric of ¨U.S. foreign news coverage.
A shift in U.S. foreign news coverage
The foreign national stringer and the U.S. correspondent is a duo that is fast becoming inseparable.
With the outlook for the bleak U.S. foreign news, news outlets are searching for ways to retain an international news hole without worsening their financial position. Many suggest that stringers may be the solution.
Current economic woes may accelerate the closing of foreign news of U.S organizations, which were already thinning before the recession. CBS News Vice President Christopher Isham does not see budgets for international news expanding anytime soon. Because of this, he predicts the reliance on stringers will increase in the coming years.
“In the bigger picture, with the declining economy and tight budgets, the importance of stringers emerges,” Isham said.
But Isham does not see stringers putting an end to full-time reporters covering international stories.
“I still think whenever there is a big story we want to cover, we send in our own reporters to cover it,” Isham said.
What is a stringer?
Stringers are independent contractors, and are typically paid far less money than proven U.S. foreign correspondents. They are paid by the story (The term “stringer” is thought to derive the way past editors measured the length of material submitted by independent correspondents with a piece of string and then paid by the number of column inches or centimeters used.)
Freelancers, as opposed to stringers, often pitch story ideas to news organizations and later submit the completed story. Freelancers will also write a story first and then sell it around in hopes of purchase by a news outlet.
Stringers, on the other hand, are sought out by a news outlet and assigned to gather specific information over a period of time. A Stringer develops a long-term relationship with a certain news outlet and is often restricted from working for competing news organizations.
Because many stringers live in foreign countries, U.S. news outlets have developed quick and effective methods for finding stringers they can trust
Aram Roston, investigative producer at NBC said, “The easiest way to find one [stringer] is to go to a local journalism school or go to a local newspaper because you can usually pay way better than what they’re earning at work.”
Isham describes the relationship between stringers and CBS News as somewhat more structured.
“It’s a consistent pool,” Isham said. “We have people in every country that we’ve identified.”
U.S. news outlets rely on stringers to be on location, reporting for them immediately if a story breaks. “You’re either on a retainer or you are, well, we have a list of them and then we activate them if we need them,” Isham said. “It’s more of a loose affiliation.”
The level of trust and reliance news outlets and journalists have with stringers, however, differs tremendously.
Isham said while CBS trusts their stringers to provide objective, honest news coverage, reporters at other outlets are more wary of their input.
“I do the journalism and tell the stringers what kind of support we need,” Ralph Jennings, Reuters correspondent in Taipei, wrote in an email. “If a stringer shows journalistic aptitude, then I defer some decisions to that person.”
Stringers, by the virtue of being local, have knowledge of the area that most foreign correspondents lack. They are able to provide context in reporting that might otherwise be left out.
When foreign correspondents find themselves in the middle of conflicts and dangerous situations, local stringers can open doors. They have an ability to blend in – what freelancer reporter Mohammed A. Salih calls a “natural camouflage” – on the ground.
Stringers also have another key advantage: they know the local language. Communication between an English-speaking reporter and a foreign source would prove impossible if the language barrier exists. Stringers and fixers can either serve as direct translators, or the correspondent can send the stringer out to conduct interviews.
“Locals understand a place better than a journalist parachuting in for a story ever can,” reporter Aamer Madhani said. “The best stringer has the contacts to set up the hard-to-get interview with a senior official, the grace to help ease you out of difficult situations and the eye for the details that an outsider might overlook.”
For CBS News, stringers proved invaluable in the tribal areas of Pakistan, where it is extremely dangerous to send Westerners, Isham said.
Hiring a stringer in a foreign country may, however, pose problems for news organizations. Stringers’ own backgrounds and past experiences may form a subjective view of the situation. Salih said the prejudiced pieces could even turn into propaganda. Stringers may incorporate their own biases in the production process.
“We can act like a gatekeeper because we know things,” Salih said. “Without knowing the local languages, I had no way to confirm what they told me,” said Jennings, who used stringers while covering the 1998 election in Cambodia and reporting in Mongolia in 2005.
Jennings has a natural distrust of stringers because “not all stringers are trustworthy and (some) may even flee in tense situations.”
The reliability of stringers
So how does a journalist find a reliable stringer? “We generally check them out with other reporters,” Isham of CBS News said. “We will often work with somebody you know for a couple of times, give them a trial run, see how it works out, see how we like them and then we go from there.”
Nevertheless, the credibility and accuracy of stringers is often under skepticism.
“You have to ask [to] what degree do you have editorial oversight and accountability,” said Roston, the investigative journalist and producer at NBC News.
Roston adds that stringers could cause serious problems like issues with libel or putting themselves or others in danger. Unfortunately though, these troubles are inevitable, he said.
“You have no choice, it is just reality,” Roston said. “You can’t go somewhere without them. You have to know them, and they have to be fully aware of your standards and practices.”
Even though news organizations are not obliged to help stringers, they feel responsible to do so, Isham said. Especially when stringers put themselves in dangerous situations because of their assignments.
Another problem of hiring stringers is their commitment to the news organization. Compared to correspondents, who work for specific target audiences and are trusted by the company, stringers are sometimes employed by more than one outlet and serve a wide range of customers.
‘It’s a different relationship, they can be very valuable but it’s not the same as having your own people there,”
Isham said.
The Face of Foreign Reporting in the Future
As few news outlets survive in the traditional financial model, U.S. news outlets find themselves in a transition phase. What will news look like in 20, 10, even 5 years? Nobody knows.
The cost and availability of stringers around the world gives U.S news outlets a tangible solution to this dilemma.
GlobalPost.com, which launched this January, seems poised to lead the trend toward stringer-based reporting. The GlobalPost Web site will rely on a network of some 70 stringers to provide in-depth, international coverage from over 50 countries.
“We’re using the classic freelance model with a little bit of a twist,” said GlobalPost’s Director of Communications and Marketing Rick Byrne.
Byrne said the organization’s “correspondents” will sign contracts and receive stipends, but will also be awarded shares in the company. GlobalPost will put a special emphasis on those countries that are not well covered in traditional U.S. media.
GlobalPost will focus on in-depth analysis, and utilize local stringers and proven foreign correspondents to produce original news from the whole world.
“The idea that our correspondents live in these countries and really understand the country really makes a difference in the end product, rather than parachuting someone in like so many places do,” Byrne said. “Our people really have time to think about what they want to do and to cultivate stories and ideas over time.”
And so the international reporting wheel undergoes a reinvention.