How did getting access to a professional fixer in Morocco become so difficult? Which is the best guy? .. In particular, for foreign film crews visiting the country to make reports for foreign television channels, investigative documentaries, or other audiovisual programmes intended for television or web audiences.
At the beginning, as I’ve been working in Morocco as a local producer since 2000, and this is probably the case for all my Moroccan colleagues who started at that time, they all came from the field of journalism or film production.
Today, most of them come from the tourism sector. You can easily come across a tour guide, a carpet or fossil seller, or even a camel man presenting his fixing service. The only small remark I absolutely must underline here is that you could have a nightmare shooting in Morocco if you’re the kind of “artist” who likes to produce high-quality, professional work.
In traditional journalism, a fixer is a local journalist hired by a correspondent or media agency to help organise a story (text, photo or video). In audiovisual production, a fixer is a local producer (or line producer or field producer) hired by a producer to find locations, profiles or authorisations to film sequences according to a specific script.
In all cases, Fixers also play the role of translator and tour guide, able to help you discover the local culture you want to convey to your audience. The journalist or producer is not visiting Morocco for tourism, but to tell his story to the world, and he needs a reliable adviser.
According to Canadian journalist Laurie Few, “you don’t have time not to listen to the fixer”. These mediators help you to understand the local culture, save time, and work legally in a country while respecting the cultural codes of the population and the laws in force.
According to the Global Reporting Centre’s 2017 study of the world’s fixers, only 200 people voluntarily took part in the study (The number of respondents was 132 for North America, 101 for Europe, 23 for South America, Africa, and Eurasia, 63 for Asia, and 9 for Australia). (1)
It also shows that the number of fixers is minimal throughout the world, as they often take part voluntarily without seeking glory, preferring to remain in the shadows. They are true patriots, rooted in their land, their culture, and their colours.
In Morocco, as in most Arab countries, practising this profession is often too complicated. Today, this profession is practised by people from the tourism sector, and the situation is now alarming. So, if you rely solely on search engines to find your fixer in Morocco, you run the risk of not telling the right story about this ancient kingdom to your audience.
02 May 2025 – Rabat (Morocco)
By: Khalid Leo FAKHAR – Producer & Consultant
(1) – “Fixing the Journalist-Fixer Relationship”. Global Reporting Centre. November 10, 2017. Retrieved April 23, 2019.
https://globalreportingcentre.org/fixers/
