A Russian journalist covering Vladimir Putin has some advice for Americans reporting on President Trump

Now that Donald Trump has been sworn in as the 45th President of the United States, the American and international press are gearing up for four years of presidential coverage — and the clashes have already begun.

Earlier this week, Trump announced that the White House press briefing room will remain in the West Wing, after it was reported that his team was considering relocating it.

That news came as a relief to the White House Correspondents' Association. But in his first press conference as President-elect on Jan. 11, Trump showed no interest in playing by the media's rules.

Over the course of that conference, Trump called BuzzFeed a "failing pile of garbage" and declared CNN "fake news", while evading questions about his relationship with Russia and even bringing stacks of documents onstage as a prop.

To the many Russian journalists who were watching the whole thing unfold on Twitter, Trump's bombastic style was not unfamiliar.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has a notoriously tight grip on his country's media. Each December, he holds an annual marathon press conference that's televised live on all Russian TV channels.

Russian journalist Alexey Kovalev has been reporting on the Russian president for years. "When you've covered Russian politics for long enough, you see that there are patterns," he says.

Kovalev says he's learned a number of lessons covering Putin that could come in handy for the journalists gearing up to cover President Trump.

Here are his top three:

Journalists don't get to make the rules any more.

"When you go to a press conference by any leader, you're always on the losing side, really. Because it's the leader who sets the rules.

One of the ways Putin is such an expert at entirely controlling the agenda is by filling the room with loyalists who will cheer and applaud after his answers, and will throw softball questions at him that don't have anything to do with his office.

You're always on the losing side, really. Because it's the leader who sets the rules.- Alexey Kovalev

They'll ask him things like, 'how do you feel today, Mr. President?' or 'Do you have a special person in your heart?' These are the things that really fill the headlines when you look at the coverage. It doesn't really pay off."

Don't mistake spectacle for substance.

"I can see that my American colleagues tend to obsess over each and every [one of] Trump's outrageous tweets. But that's keeping you from following what's really important.

Those who didn't vote for Trump, they already know all the negative things that we have reported. So we are, in a way, preaching to the choir. But his constituency certainly won't care. But they probably will need to know how a Trump presidency will affect them personally.

So concentrate on the important stuff; not all the chaff that's being thrown out."

Welcome to the post-fact era.

"One thing that is the mainstay of Putin's press conferences is that the facts don't really matter.

It's not that he admits a lie; no, it's he who decides what is truth and what is a lie today. And tomorrow it's going to be different. It's one of his ways of setting the rules of the game and changing them.

It's not that he admits a lie; no, it's he who decides what is truth and what is a lie today.- Alexey Kovalev

So get used to that; and try to stick to simple 'yes-or-no' questions, because if you don't do that, he'll launch a long tirade full of nonsensical factoids that you won't be able to fact-check as you're doing. And after the press conference, it won't matter.

What really matters is what he doesn't say in public. Because really important things in politics tend to be away from the public eyes."

Watch Donald Trump's first press conference as President-Elect on January 11, 2017: