Costs – Much Less Boring Than You Expect

Former Ambassador, Human Rights Activist

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 ansewr may be “No”. I want to explain the costs to you.

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.

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 clearnace from both the same and other authorities, at both the national and local level.

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’s shooting.

A highly evolved system of “fixers” 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.

Other essentials that you need for a shoot like that one at the border – vehicle, driver, and interpreter – come as part of a package from the fixers. It is not really separate this package out, as the driver is an essential cog in the functioning of the system of permissions – he knows who has the list that you are on locally.

So to get out to the border and do that shoot cost us about $700 plus consumables – petrol, food etc. I do think it was worth it:

We have produced a stream of such short reports, pkus written articles as well as a constant social media output on twitter. We have been receiving millions of views even for some individual videos.

We are also producing mini-documentaries. We have done three so far. These can involve not just more than one day shooting – each about $700 – but also need proper editing and post production, with sound, colour grading etc. For that we are using a local post-production studio. The upside is of course that all these costs represent employment for local people.

A beautifully made, thoughtful and very moving film from Craig Murray and his team. The BBC ought to have made this and I wish they had. https://t.co/zeo0wNuzbJ

— Peter Oborne (@OborneTweets) December 7, 2024

I haven’t got the bill for that one yet, but post-production on our first mini-documentary on refugees is in the region of $7,000. If the BBC had made the above item, their overall costs would have been ten times this or more.

In addition to which we have the costs of just being here, with all our equipment. We stayed in a hotel, then in two arinbnbs. This is a rough breakdown of everything so far:

Airfares $2,860 (we have expensive open returns in case of having to get out quickly!)
Hotel $2,320
Airbnb 1 $2,140
Airbnb 2 $1,280 (paid till 18 Dec)

Subsistence 43 days x $50 each $4,300
Locally purchased equipment $280
Casual Transport $420
Casual interpretation $160

“Fixer” services $4,800
including transport, interpretation and permits

Post production costs (estimate) $15,000

Actual spend so far: USD 33,560
That is about £26,400

This is without adding any actual income for Niels. And assuming the blog subscriptions give me just my normal income for doing this work (but see below).

Against this we have received so far approximately £21,500. I had diversified the fundraising streams specifically for this trip, though partly in response to long term demands from readers for more options.

We have received £14,849 from the Gofundme we set up, (which finally Gofundme have agreed to release to us), and about £6,700 in total from other donation options in this period. There are also new subscriptions to my work which will bring in about £4,000 a year so long as they are maintained, but obviously this is longer term income.

So at the moment we are about £5,000 out of pocket. I had hoped that this would improve but, contrary to expectations, the more work we have produced, the less donations have been coming in.

Many people producing “independent journalism” from warzones are in fact receiving some benefit from a party – it may be accommodation or transport or logistics. We are genuinely independent. Nor do we have any backing from any apparently benign foundation or fund.

Perhaps this is a foolish, Quixotic quest and it is not possible to do alternative media with my approach from a warzone. In which case we will have to give up and come home. That would be a pity. The genocide in Gaza is not stopping and even this moment Israeli drones circle above is here – the USA and Israel are plunging this reason further into chaos.

I am not asking those who have so kindly supported to give more. I very, very definitely do not want anybody to support if it causes them the slightest financial hardship, and I know things are difficult. But if you have not done so and you can help. or if you can bring this to the attention of others who might help, I should be grateful.

Thank you

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My reporting and advocacy work has no source of finance at all other than your contributions to keep us going. We get nothing from any state nor any billionaire.

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Because some people wish an alternative to PayPal, I have set up new methods of payment including a GoFundMe appeal and a Patreon account.

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