I was a minor photojournalist once. I wasn’t taking iconic photos and nobody cares about my body of work. But I will tell you two things: I loved it and I didn’t get paid very much.
I suspect those two things ring true with most photojournalists, including some of those who captured iconic images of Trump’s assassination attempt on Saturday.
Photojournalism is so romantic and storied. No less than three Hollywood movies about photojournalism will be released this year. The public, generally, understands their worth. So why are they paid so little?
One freelance photographer who attended the pivotal rally in Pennsylvania tells Axios that the standard day rate and frequency of editorial work means they can’t live and work without other income streams.
“We’re working our asses off before the shoot, during the shoot, and then to edit after and we put so much effort into it because we care about the image,” says the anonymous photographer.
“If I start to balance the day rate with the hours I put in, I don’t think I’m making minimum wage.”
Another photographer emphasizes squaring a job that comes with great social responsibility but pays a day rate of $400. Let’s not forget either, camera equipment isn’t cheap.
It chimes with a recent survey of photojournalists that found the majority of them believe a career is unsustainable.
The respondents identified “rights-grabbing contracts” and “low assignment rates” as the reasons why photojournalism is difficult.
“I hate being pessimistic because we need quality journalism now more than ever, but you’re cursing yourself to poverty and worse by being a photojournalist,” wrote one respondent who has 25 years of experience and is now living on disability. “I’ve sacrificed financial stability and my health for this life.”
It’s not that everyone struggles in photojournalism. The people at the absolute apex of the profession will be compensated just fine and I know there are freelancers doing very well for themselves.
Why Are Photojournalists Not Paid Well?
The reasons are numerous. I’m going to use myself, a 35-year-old photographer, as an example.
I entered the newspaper photography world in roughly 2009. By that time, the print industry was already beginning to feel the effect of the World Wide Web and the fact news was suddenly free to read on a computer.
There was still money to be made; hell, to this day there is still good money to be made in print despite plummeting readership. But the majority of people read their news online which itself is plagued by low ad rates and rampant plagiarism. Simply put, online news has never and seemingly will never reach the kind of revenue that newspapers made in their heyday.
Photojournalism has fallen victim to tectonic shifts in technology and maybe that will change again in a way that benefits news and documentary photography — nothing ever stays the same.
For now, we should celebrate that 2024 has been a win for photojournalism. Not just because of Hollywood movies like Civil War and the upcoming Lee, but the still image arguably won over the moving image when the biggest news story of the year happened last weekend as my colleague Jeremy Gray describes eloquently.
No matter the economic winds, photojournalism will continue to hold an important place in democracy and society. Even if the men and women who do the job aren’t compensated fairly.
Image credits: A24.
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