\n<\/p>\n
You have probably noticed my frenetic and uncharacteristic appeals for donations across social media. This has been an experiment as to whether genuinely independent reporting from a colonialist war zone is possible, and the answer may be \u201cNo\u201d. I want to explain the costs to you.<\/p>\n
Leaving aside for a paragraph or two the costs of cinematographer Niels Ladefoged and myself getting here and living here, let me tell you about the cost just of the 5-minute piece I did from the Syrian\/Lebanese border.<\/p>\n
After obtaining our general permits to report from the Ministry of Information, the Ministry of Defence and other sources, we cannot just go and film anywhere. Almost everywhere we might want to film (including everywhere we have filmed so far) requires specific individual permission and clearance from both the same and other authorities, at both the national and local level.<\/p>\n
It is just not practical to get these permissions ourselves. They require a network of contacts we just do not have, the ability to get heard in a very bureaucratic system, and at a basic level, language skills. If we tried to do it ourselves it would take weeks to do one day\u2019s shooting.<\/p>\n
A highly evolved system of \u201cfixers\u201d has grown up in Lebanon, of people who set these things up for visiting news teams. They are a world in themselves with a definite hierarchy. They also generally work for organisations like the New York Times or the BBC who are not really counting the pennies. Foreigners like us cannot avoid it. Perhaps if we were here for a couple of years we could bypass this system, but we learnt quickly and painfully that we cannot at present.<\/p>\n
Other essentials that you need for a shoot like that one at the border \u2013 vehicle, driver, and interpreter \u2013 come as part of a package from the fixers. It is not really possible to separate this package out, as the driver is an essential cog in the functioning of the system of permissions \u2013 he knows who has the list that you are on locally.<\/p>\n
So to get out to the border and do that shoot cost us about $700 plus consumables \u2013 petrol, food etc. I do think it was worth it:<\/p>\n