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Fixer (person)

Person who carries out assignments or solves problems for others From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A fixer is someone who is assigned or contracted to solve problems for others. The term has different meanings in different contexts. In British usage (and in other Commonwealth countries) the term is neutral, referring to a person, such as a special adviser, "who...gets things done".[1] Use in American English implies that the methods used are of questionable morality and legality.[2]

In organized crime, cleaners remove incriminating physical evidence, including the disposal of bodies or witnesses. In sports, the term 'fixer' describes someone who makes arrangements to manipulate or pre-arrange the outcome of a sporting contest. In journalism, a fixer is a local person who expedites the work of a foreign correspondent.

Facilitator

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Fixers may primarily use legal means, such as lawsuits and payoffs, to accomplish their ends, or they may carry out unlawful activities. The White House Plumbers have been described as fixers for Richard Nixon; their methods included break-ins and burglary.[3] Fixers who specialize in disposing of evidence or bodies are called "cleaners",[4] like the character of Victor "The Cleaner" in the film La Femme Nikita, or the fictional Jonathan Quinn, subject of the Brett Battles novel The Cleaner.[5]

In Britain, a fixer is a commercial consultant for business improvement, whereas in an American context a fixer is often an associate of a powerful person who carries out difficult, undercover, or stealth actions, or extricates a client out of personal or legal trouble.[1][6] A fixer may freelance, like Judy Smith, a well-known American public relations "crisis consultant" whose career provided inspiration for the popular 2012 television series Scandal.[7] More commonly a fixer works for a single employer, under a title such as "attorney" or "bodyguard", which does not typically describe the kinds of services that they provide.

In Philippine English, fixer has a deep negative meaning where it refers to individuals who help give government clients a preferential priority or speedy processing in an agency for a price. Some also practise illegal activities such as swindling and selling fake IDs unbeknownst to the client. Because of their work, fixers have connections with government employees in the office they loiter around and give cuts to their partners inside. Fixers are typically found outside buildings of government agencies, particularly around many Land Transportation Office field branches. Due to bribery and scamming, fixers are illegal under Philippine law and those caught are imprisoned for 6 years and fined up to 200,000 pesos.[8][9]

Sports match fixer

Main article: Match fixing

In sport, when a match fixer arranges a preordained outcome of a sporting or athletic contest, the motivation is often gambling, and the fixer is often employed by organized crime. In the Black Sox Scandal, for instance, Major League Baseball players became involved with a gambling syndicate and agreed to lose the 1919 World Series in exchange for payoffs.[10] In another example, in 1975, Boston mobster Anthony "Fat Tony" Ciulla of the Winter Hill Gang was identified as the fixer who routinely bribed jockeys to throw horse races.[11][12] Other insiders may also be fixers, as in the case of veterinarian Mark Gerard, who, in September 1978, was convicted of fraud for "masterminding a horse-racing scandal that involved switching two thoroughbreds" so that he could cash in on a long-shot bet.[11]

Journalism

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In journalism, a fixer is someone, often a local journalist, hired by a correspondent or a media company to help arrange a story. Fixers will often act as translators and guides, and help to arrange local interviews that the correspondent would otherwise not be able to access. They help collect information for the story and sometimes play a crucial role in the outcome.[13] Fixers are rarely credited, and often put themselves in danger, especially in regimes where they might face consequences from an oppressive government for exposing iniquities the state may want to censor.[14][15]

These aides are often the prime risk mitigators within a journalist's team, making crucial decisions for the reporter. According to journalist Laurie Few, "You don't have time not to listen (to the fixer)", and anybody who disregards a fixer's advice "is going to step on a landmine, figurative or actual".[16] Fixers have ranged from civilians to local journalists within regions of conflict. They are rarely credited and paid menially, which has begun a conversation for the compensation rights of these individuals. According to statistics gathered from the Global Investigative Journalism Network, the base pay for a fixer's time ranged from US$50–400 per day.[16]

A map based on publicly accessible research data shows a visual representation of data collected from various studies conducted on both fixers and their journalist counterparts from over 70 countries. Gathered from the Global Reporting Centre, the survey demographic map had 132 respondents from North America, 101 from Europe, 23 from South America, Africa and Eurasia, 63 from Asia and 9 from Australia.[17]

In popular culture

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Numerous films and several songs have been named The Fixer. As a genre, they illustrate the different meanings of the term. Most commonly, they refer to the kind of person who carries out illicit activities on behalf of someone else. For example, the 2008 British television series The Fixer is about "a renegade group acting outside the law to bring order to the spiraling criminal activity in the country".[18]

  • The 1986 film Wise Guys features Captain Lou Albano as Frankie "The Fixer" Acavano, an overweight, violent yet gluttonous psychopath who is tasked with tracking and killing the protagonists after ripping off their boss, Lou Castello, of a quarter of a million dollars in a fixed horse race.
  • The 1990 film La femme Nikita features Jean Reno as a cleaner who is called in to kill everyone and destroy the bodies after a mission goes awry.
  • The 1994 film Pulp Fiction features Harvey Keitel as Winston Wolfe, a notorious fixer and cleaner, who helps the protagonists dispose of a corpse.[19]
  • The main antagonist of the 2000 novel Void Moon is a near-psychotic fixer who cleans and investigates a murder in his employer's casino.
  • A BBC Two documentary Alex Polizzi: The Fixer features a fixer in the benign British sense – a consultant who helps to turn around failing businesses.[20]
  • The 2000 bro-Western thriller The Way of the Gun has James Caan as a fixer known as Joe Sarno, a "Bagman".
  • The 2007 film Michael Clayton stars George Clooney as a fixer who works for a prestigious law firm and uses his connections and knowledge of legal loopholes to help his clients.[21]

Notable fixers

Business

Entertainment

Journalism

Organized crime

Politics

Public relations

Religion

See also

References

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