Amid the war, journalists are having a harder time accessing not just registers, but people – Opanasenko

Since the start of the full-scale war, journalists have been having a hard time accessing not just state registers, but people as such. BIHUS.Info editor Maksym Opanasenko spoke about this in his interview with IMI.

According to him, working with registers and aggregators takes a little longer than before now. However, journalists (and in particular investigative journalists), have much more trouble accessing people.

"The biggest problem is access to people, because there is a very unfortunate trend of non-responding to requests for public information, and quite frankly, I don't even know what to call it... Sometimes it seems that officials are mocking journalists, showing that we won't get our way: 'We will not answer any of the questions that you sent there. We care absolutely none about the law,'" the journalist said.

He noted that usually officials explain their failure to provide information with security issues and the war, even when the issue has nothing to do with defense capabilities or security. "Accordingly, such information can not be accessed – getting answers to requests is impossible. Moreover, it is often just as impossible a task to ask the people who possess such information personally, at least in Kyiv, where access to the Verkhovna Rada is closed. The government block is also effectively off limits. So now one can't even wait for an official and ask them questions on the street, as we used to do," added Opanasenko.

As IMI reported, the Volyn Oblast Administration refused to provide Center for Journalistic Investigations "Syla Pravdy" with the number of people who were issued permits to travel abroad.

On March 9, two local councils in Mykolaiv held online meetings: the City Council and the Oblast Council. While the Mykolaiv City Council, whose meetings are held as conference calls, livestreams them on YouTube, the Oblast Council's meeting was effectively held in secret.