November 11, 2026
"The Post still runs pictures, from wire services, from freelancers it commissions one assignment at a time, and from a photojournalism fellow, Maxine Wallace, whose Post photo credits have continued through 2026. What ended on February 4 was the staff photographer, the standing job whose whole purpose was to go out and make them...
The feed being asked to stand in for the Post's picture desk is cutting its own photo editors, and the number of American photo editors standing between a frame and a front page is falling on both sides of the transaction...
That leaves the freelancer. When the Columbia Journalism Review surveyed 30 freelance photojournalists in 2017 about pay and treatment at major outlets, the day rate they reported for the Post was $350. Assume generously that it has moved since. The structure of the problem has not.
To gross the $132,000 that the bottom of the Post's own staff band implies, a stringer billing $350 a day needs 378 billing days. There are 365 in a year..." --full article here
