Producing in precarity: A focus on freelancing in U.S. local television newsrooms

Studies of job precarity in the journalism business often focus on print and digital workers, leaving the examination of broadcast workers underserved. This chapter fills that gap by focusing on the impact on precariousness on local broadcast television news workers in the United States, who work for the most popular sources of local news in the country. These workers do the same jobs as their permanent counterparts but with no promise of job security. This affects not only the worker during work time but also during non-working hours (which are few). The unpredictability and instability of freelancing leads to difficult choices regarding family and health, and potentially affects the communities they serve.