Laying off full-time journalists in favor of relying onfreelancers and syndicated content providers has become anincreasingly common strategy for media companies seeking tomaintain their profits.

Nearly 16,000 layoffs and buyouts at newspapers occurred in2008, for instance, according to the “Paper Cuts” blog, whichtracks job losses at newspapers, and nearly 3,800 were let go orbought out in 2011.

Many of these laid-off reporters—accustomed to being covered forlibel, slander and other standard claims by media-insurancepolicies at their large organizations—became freelancers and lostthe protection of those policies.

While some carriers will issue media policies directly toindividuals, the cost can be prohibitive. So most savvyjournalists-for-hire will try to make sure they are covered by thecompany paying for their services—which also has the deeper pocketsand is more likely to be targeted in a lawsuit that arises from athird-party provider’s work being called into question.

Media companies that use freelancers will want to double-checkto make sure any coverage warranties they extend to theircontributors are indeed supported by the language of theirpolicies.

In addition to those journalists who struck out on their own,others have formed smaller reporting collectives—and are looking tolicense their articles to larger players.

The Investigative News Network (INN) is an advocacy group, manyof whose nonprofit members have formed their newsgatheringoperations only recently. Its 60 member organizations tend to besmall, observes CEO/Executive Director Kevin Davis. While somemembers already had media insurance before joining, many others didnot.

During the past year, as a benefit for its members, INNapproached its broker to find an insurance source that would bewilling to give discounted rates. It found ThinkRisk, a managinggeneral underwriting agency specializing in Errors & Omissionsinsurance in media, advertising technology and networksecurity.

INN also reworked its membership agreement to addressindemnification as it relates to members who wish to distribute andsyndicate their content with wire services such as ThomsonReuters.