I have had a bit to drink so I will try and answer these as well as possible.
>>3875979Please take your meds Anon.
>>3876355It's not up to the Russians, not officially anyway, or to my own belief. They let very very few people in. I think it is to protect against spooks, western propaganda, and to protect journos – since there is still a pretty big rift between the rebels and their government. I made it clear that I had worked closely with Ukraine when I applied for my press accreditation, and to the shock of myself and many others, they approved me. MY DPR press pass was number 40-something, my Ukrainian one was 2000-something.
>>3876710Yeh, I do have tinnitus. Before I got into the line of work I loved watching (still do) Archer, and all the tinnitus jokes. Now the quote 'I need to sleep with the fan on' has a bit of a different meaning. My tinnitus isn't from a large number of gunshots, rather guns being fired inside concrete buildings (that shit is dangerous).
There is not really one method of getting agreements. It's been different every time, and from what I hear it's also been different for other fens in the field. I always inform several outlets first and see if they are interested in anything. But before that comes getting all the baseline paperwork out of the way, press pass, accreditation – stuff that actually lets you work in the area. Once you are on the ground, the normal procedure (not what I do) would be to get everything else figured out by your fixer – essentially a tour guide for reporters who has all the right contacts.
Let me know if I should explain this better.
