I don't mean to wax sentimental about the good ol' days of journalism. The American press has never been as free or truthful as we mythologize. When the journalism profession gets into a flurry of moral outrage over someone like former NY Times reporter Jayson Blair, who simply stole or invented his material, it's great theater but only theater.

Neglecting to notice that you don't actually need to plagiarize or invent the news to give a false account, media mavens go on the talk shows or write columns. There corporate journalism is felt for lumps to see if a cancer is growing upon the profession. The subtext is that journalists are so honest that when a reporter such as Blair is discovered, an investigation must be launched to determine how the bad apple got into the barrel. And after the paroxysms of self-examination are exhausted the mainstream media return to their primary business of hoodwinking and distracting the public until the next bad apple comes along.

And so the most recent wormy apple has turned out to be Syrian reporter George Baghdadi,1 who has worked for both Time and USA Today. Baghdadi, according to Jay DeFoore in E&P, was fired by Cox News Service for stealing quotes from the St. Petersburg Times concerning ... yep, you guessed it—"the popularity of an Arab version of the classic Barbie doll." This vital but plagiarized story was passed from Cox onto the New York Times News Service whence it was distributed to all of suffering mankind. And naturally it has been the occasion for more media introspection.

One such piece was written the other day by David Paulin for E&P. It is more interesting than most because it actually informs how the foreign news makes it to the dinner table, and more honest than most by acknowledging that inventing the news is not all that difficult.

Paulin describes a member of the journalism hierarchy unknown to most poor sods: the "fixer."—

Generally, they're local hires who get their jobs through an informal word-of-mouth process -- not through the organized vetting process news organization use to hire editorial staff....

Baghdadi was probably like fixers I have known in another respect. He apparently played a major role in shaping stories, doing just about everything in the news gathering process except for writing the finished piece. Indeed, fixers may decide who to interview, set appointments, lead visiting reporters around by the hand, and provide translation services -- all things Baghdadi apparently did for Nelson, Cox's contract reporter. Fixers also may provide quotes and local color to staff foreign correspondents holed up elsewhere, perhaps across town in hotel rooms or in offices in another country -- also something Baghdadi did for Nelson, although in this case it was fabricated or plagiarized quotes.

Fixers may be local residents or expatriates, and their journalism experience may be extremely limited. Those who are proven journalists and do terrific work are in demand, although proven and busy freelance journalists, to be sure, are often reluctant to work as fixers.

Paulin asks,

How many fixers in Iraq and elsewhere, struggling to support families amid chaotic conditions, would be tempted to cut corners to ensure that a check arrives on time?

I can't count that high. But Paulin makes some suggestions—all right as far as they go—on how to fix the fixers.

In an age of layoffs and declining profits, freelance "contract" reporters such as Nelson and freelance fixers such as Baghdadi are here to stay. How can the system be made more honest?

One would be to require that fixers be trained journalists. Besides working as fixers, they should write for the papers which contract them. Editors should vet them as carefully as they do perspective staff reporters, and they should meet the same professional requirements as new staff members. A base salary would deter the temptation to cut corners, such as fabricating quotes, to help maintain a cash flow.

Finally, fixers who provide quotes should be credited in stories as having done so; it's something some papers don't do. In the case of Cox's Barbie doll story, for example, Nelson failed to credit Baghdadi with having provided quotes, which was described as contrary to Cox's sourcing policy.

This reflects a problem inherent in foreign reporting as practiced today. Media giants such as The New York Times and Hearst regularly publish articles by freelancers -- yet fail to note those reporters are in fact freelancers and not on staff. In the case of one Hearst paper for which I have written, I was amused to see under my byline that I was part of the paper's "foreign service."

Yes. You would think acknowledging credit and correctly describing the roles of the journalists would be the least the journalism profession might do.

But after thinking about the implications of all this, I realized that the Pentagon has been missing a great opportunity to influence news on the home front. Why pay to plant stories? Why not pay the fixers? Or just plant the fixers? Or maybe they've already thought of that.