{"id":778175,"date":"2026-07-22T16:32:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T16:32:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/778175\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T16:32:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T16:32:14","slug":"freelance-photographers-vs-wsj-talking-biz-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/778175\/","title":{"rendered":"Freelance photographers vs. WSJ &#8211; Talking Biz News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-122330\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/WSJ1-300x123.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"180\" height=\"74\"  \/>Daniella Zalcman\u00a0writes for Columbia Journalism Review about how The Wall Street Journal has angered freelance photographers due to changes in its contractor agreement.<\/p>\n<p>Zalcman writes, \u201cBut last November, the\u00a0Journal\u00a0told its freelance photojournalists about a new version of the standard contractor agreement. Two elements caused widespread alarm among current and former contributors, including me: a change in the ownership terms for images produced on assignment, and language that allowed the\u00a0Journal\u00a0to sublicense images with no restrictions\u2014and no exclusion for companies developing AI technologies. For the first time in twenty years, I thought:\u00a0Oh, shit. We\u2019re going to lose our jobs.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSoon after, a group called Your Visual Colleagues sprang up, run by four regular Journal\u00a0freelancers who anonymously detailed their fears about the contract and asked the\u00a0Journal\u00a0to reconsider. In the six months since they started their campaign, six hundred and fifty freelance photographers who work with the\u00a0Journal\u00a0have signed on\u2014myself included. It is perhaps the most unified and the most angry I have ever seen the photojournalism community\u2014and may be a bellwether for the visual-media industry.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA Journal spokesperson told me that the adjustments to the contract were \u2018essential for protecting the integrity of the Wall Street Journal\u2019s online archive and ensuring the historical permanence of these important photos that we commissioned.\u2019 But photographers have bristled at this argument, saying that the changes present a blow to their business model. At almost every major newspaper and magazine in the United States, photographs produced by freelancers remain the sole intellectual property of their creator. The new contract would assign the\u00a0Journal\u00a0primary authorship of all photographs produced on assignment through what\u2019s known as a Work for Hire clause, giving the\u00a0Journal unprecedented control.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cjr.org\/analysis\/exposure-to-risk-freelance-photographers-wall-street-journal-new-contract-ai-training-standard-agreement-your-visual-colleagues-nppa-news-corp-openai.php\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Daniella Zalcman\u00a0writes for Columbia Journalism Review about how The Wall Street Journal has angered freelance photographers due to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":778176,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[228,226,227,229,88,45582],"class_list":["post-778175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-the-wall-street-journal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/778175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=778175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/778175\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/778176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=778175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=778175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=778175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}