the.com/stringer
A freelance journalist paid in scraps to risk everything the staff reporter won't.
means A freelance correspondent, often local to a remote or dangerous area, who supplies news stories or footage to a media outlet without being a salaried staff member.
from From the newsroom practice of literally stringing together — the string in question being the column-inches a freelancer would paste end to end to measure and bill their work. Editors paid by the inch, so the correspondent kept a string of clippings as proof. The term stuck long after the measuring string itself disappeared, now covering stray contributors and roving cameramen alike.
- origin
- named for stringing together space-rate column inches
- pay model
- often per published item, not per hour
- war zones
- many conflict photos credited to uninsured stringers
- career path
- sometimes leads to full staff jobs, rarely