Survival Strategies in Freelance Journalism: An Empowering Toolkit to Improve Professionals’ Working Conditions

Abstract

Freelance journalism has become a key employment alternative in the current media landscape, with news organizations often relying on these independent professionals to reduce organizational budgets. Although extant research reveals a high degree of job satisfaction among professionals in different markets, such as the United States or Norway, freelancing is a position shaped by the tension between precarity and autonomy and is often related to economic insecurity. To deepen our understanding of this complex reality in Spain, this study explores freelance journalists’ perceptions of the craft through 30 semi-structured interviews. Based on these results, this study proposes the existence of a “freelancers’ shelter architecture”—a group of variables that define personal working conditions and levels of job satisfaction. This study makes a practical contribution to the field insofar as it provides a freelancing empowering toolkit for enhancing the professional situation of freelance journalists.