Freelance Writers and Stringers

Definitions and Evolution

The Oxford English Dictionary online traces the word freelance to the Middle Ages, when it designated “a type of military adventurer … who offered his services to states or individuals for payment, or with a view to plunder; a mercenary soldier.” In modern times, to freelance means to works as an independent contractor, fulfilling assignments for different clients.

A stringer is a subcategory of freelancer who supplies content on a regular basis for a specific client. The designation originated in newspaper work, with nonstaff correspondents paid according to column inches published; an untraceable urban legend has it that such writers used string to measure and bill for their accumulated work, while the online Oxford English Dictionary attributes the term to the figurative saying “one who strings words together.” The usage grew in the 1950s, especially as applied to photographers and foreign correspondents, and thanks largely to the expansion of Time Life magazine operations, which claimed 435 correspondents, stringers, and writers reporting from 33 locations around the world by 1958. By the 1960s to 1970s, TV news relied increasingly on worldwide stringers as well.

During this same postwar period, the proliferation of niche magazines and trade journals along with the growth of advertising, marketing, and public relations industries created additional demands for writers, editors, designers, illustrators, photographers, and others with relevant media skills. Over time, the burgeoning availability of work without corresponding provision of permanent salaried positions gave rise to a notion of freelancing as a career in itself. An accompanying genre of instruction emerged in the form of books, magazines, marketing directories, and writers' courses aimed at individuals seeking income from media piecework.

In the Internet age, the downsizing of conventional print and broadcast staffs, the continued vitality of niche and trade publications, and the boundless appetites of the web only accentuated these trends. While extending infinite opportunities for mostly unpaid expression, the Internet also furthered the idea of content creation for money, seen in the profusion of self-help websites for would-be freelancers. Meanwhile, celebrity journalism across all media continued to build upon and sustain another brand of freelancer—the paparazzi, glad to sell photos or stories to the highest bidder.

International Reporting

As major news organizations closed or consolidated foreign bureaus and cut back on permanent staffing abroad, overseas stringers became even more crucial to international coverage. Young freelancers willing to travel to dangerous hot spots provided much of the reporting on Latin American [Page 645]upheavals in the 1970s to 1980s, and stringers were conduits for much of the news of the brutal Balkan civil wars in the early 1990s.

...