1.2 The News and Editorial Market

Editorial clients. In this section, I'm gonna be talking about a variety of the clients that I've had experience with, including magazines, newspapers, PR companies, wire services, and recently, online newspapers. A short background on me, I began working for newspapers directly after graduating photography school about eight years ago. I've been working for newspapers, magazines, and all other various clients since then. To get a little bit into the language that I'm using here, a staff photographer is someone who's employed full-time by a newspaper. Newspaper photography is a nine to five job. They wake up every morning, check their assignments, and head out on the road. These jobs, though, are drastically shrinking in the industry. Three years ago, I struck out on my own as a freelance photographer, leaving my staff photography job. The economic security isn't as good, but I'm willing to trade it for the amount of freedom that I have with my photography. As a freelance photographer, I'm always approaching new editors and explaining my work. Editors have a list of freelance photographers that they know and trust. When an assignment comes up in a specific region, they consult this list. And that's how it's done. Magazine editors work quite similar to newspaper editors. But they generally have a little bit more resources, and longer timelines to invest in photography. Magazines generally are less constricted by budgets and timelines. And they're more generally focused on the type of photography they're commissioning. Wire services are organizations that provide photos to subscribing editorial and commercial clients. Wire services, such as Getty, Associated Press, Reuters, all work similar to newspapers. They have a staff of photo editors and staff photographers, but also work with freelance photographers who they like to call stringers. Online editorial sites have been popping up over the last few years, and are a new, emerging market in editorial photography. Everyone, from local blogs to international news organizations, are looking for content and have assignments. PR companies love the skills of editorial photography. Whether it's a portrait of an executive, photo or video coverage of some of their recent projects or events, there's a lot of work for these companies. It is important to have a wide variety of skill sets as an editorial photographer, but it's also important to identify your strengths and present them first. We are gonna get deeper into this in the next section, Building Your Editorial Portfolio.