The Vulture Club: international newsgathering via Facebook

This research paper examined how freelance foreign correspondents used Facebook's 'Vulture Club' website for eliciting and sharing newsgathering information about fixers, safety gear, contacts, routes and hotels in conflict countries including Syria and Iraq. This 2014 study examined the social and cultural capital of NGO workers, fixers and journalists and the difference in behaviour between freelance and staff correspondents. It looked in particular at the danger posed by the site in terms of people seeking and accepting information from strangers in other countries.

Sample

Like its social me­dia cousin, Twitter, Facebook has transformed how journalists gather and disseminate international news. On Facebook, freelance journal­ists work together in open and closed communities to share informa­tion about news production in the latest crisis news datelines. One such community is The Vulture Club. This "secret" site is being used to gar­ner resources that previously were available only to mainstream staff correspondents. The majority of the posts on this site seek advice on good fixers, visas, safety gear, hotels and contacts. This article uses content analysis to examine posts on the VC site. It concentrates in particular on requests by freelance journalists for help with finding fix­ers in different countries. The study compares this model to a previous research study on staff correspondents and fixers. The findings are theo­rised by employing the work of Pierre Bourdieu on the acquisition of social and cultural capital.

Main Findings

At present, the VC provides a freelancers' starter kit for a large pool of people who are now involved in crisis news coverage. The lobbying for improved safety for freelancers shows that the VC is beginning to convert its online social capital into causes in which it believes and from which members will receive benefit (Lin, 2001 ). The resources available on the site are useful and are constantly being built upon by an active membership. In concentrating on one of the most important resources for correspondents - fixers - one finds that the information on the site does not have the depth of knowledge that staff journalists can access via databases and debriefs from previous reporters' experience. The information regarding Syria is not underwritten by media organisations and special security operatives, but it is up-to-date and is being underwritten by NGO workers and journalists Security is an evident problem with information put up on this site and how much it or the people who offer it can be trusted. This reflects the strength and weakness of "bridging social capital". As Vitak and Ellison state: "The tension between revealing and concealing information illustrates the kinds of challenges users face as they attempt to develop strategies that maximize the social capital benefits of these social media tools while minimizing negative outcomes" (Vitak & Ellison, 2013, p. 244). The usefulness and low costs associated with the weak tie connections of these social network sites (Donath, 2007, p. 237) are irresistible to freelancers. Elite staff correspondents do not need to use this kind of social networking in order to carry out their jobs. They do make requests on the site, but they do not return or trade much information, and this includes regarding fixers.

Policy recommendations/implications

There is a need to be careful when eliciting or receiving public information that concerns one's personal safety when abroad. Both correspondents and fixers need to know that the person they will work with is trustworthy and is committed to safety in the street and online. Saying online that you will be working in a particular place with a particular person is not recommended. The Vulture Club (VC) moved to become a "secret" rather than "closed" Facebook site in the months before this article was published. As there were already in 2013 4,000+ members of the site this did not make the make it intrinsically 'safe'. The VC site did later move to restricting important information and contacts to people in separately hidden "logistics groups" for particular countries, meaning that these country sites should have become somewhat safer. This was one of the first online sites to disseminate information on, about and by fixers but the power felt at the time to be rather one-sided in favour of the foreign correspondent/hirer. Later other sites gave more agency to fixers to advertise for work on their own terms and to demand particular criteria of safety. Some particular sites have also gone some way to "check" on the safety and responsibility of both fixers and reporters.

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Colleen had previously written a journal article about newsgathering in Iraq: Murrell, C. (2010). ‘Baghdad Bureaux: An exploration of the inter-connected world of fixers and correspondents at the BBC and CNN’. Media, War and Conflict, Vol 3 (2). September, 2010. After this article on Facebook's 'Vulture Club' Colleen returned to the coverage of Syria by global news agencies: Murrell, C. (2018) ‘The global television news agencies and their handling of user generated content video from Syria. Media, War and Conflict'. Colleen has written many journal articles, plus a book on the role of fixers. She examined their increased agency in Murrell, C. (2019) ‘Fixers as entrepreneurs.’ Journalism Studies, Vol 20 (12).