Media insurance demystified
The business of journalism requires its own special kind of insurance—a subset of the “Errors and Omissions (E&O)” policies available for professional services. Called names like “media E&O policy” and “media liability policy,” the coverage is often referred to as “media insurance.”
Media insurance is sometimes customized for media organizations but is essentially the same throughout the news and entertainment world—for freelancers and their outlets alike. Freelancers may also need auxiliary policies for anything from bodily harm to lost or damaged filmmaking equipment. But media policies cover only the creation or distribution of “media content” and its related perils—from libel and invasion of privacy to copyright infringement.
FIRE supports any freelancer’s attempt to find adequate, affordable personal media insurance, if possible—although not for the reasons you might think:
1) It could come in handy as a back-up plan:
You would not want it to come to this, but it can be helpful to have personal insurance in the highly unlikely event that an outlet somehow fails to honor its promise to protect you (e.g., in the unlikely but not-unheard-of event it has its own dispute with its insurance carrier).
2) It’s attractive to outlets (for better or worse):
According to newsroom lawyers and media-insurance experts, traditionally a freelancer would more likely secure indemnification from an outlet simply by being able to contribute their own insurance money in a legal complaint.
Both of these are perfectly fine reasons to obtain your own personal insurance if you have the money. But neither is compelling enough to forego getting indemnification from an outlet.
Unless indemnified by an outlet for their reporting, no freelance reporter should risk the peril of lawsuit in an investigative story (especially a "first-mover" or original-reporting story.) As a standard for the field, FIRE strongly recommends that publishers and broadcasters indemnify freelance reporters—with a special kind of indemnification. Other FIRE Tip Sheets detail why and how.
But in short, the rare lawsuit tends to be an exercise in baseless intimidation. Arranged at the outset, protection by the outlet gives you the confidence to follow your reporting wherever it leads; and to know that if sued, you’ll work closely with the outlet’s legal team, get through it, and live to do more public-interest reporting—whether or not you can afford personal insurance.
Indemnification must be spelled out contractually, for which see separate FIRE Tip Sheets, including this one on the relevant language—or visit here. To support the process, FIRE has begun awarding a stipend called an Indemnification Grant. It's designed to help reporters buy time to find a safe home for their public-interest story—and to report it with confidence.