Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen answers reader questions every Wednesday at TribLive.com in a column that also appears in the Sunday Tribune-Review.

Q: You talk a lot about some of the reporters, specifically on KDKA, being “a freelancer.” Exactly how does that work? Are any of the reporters actually employed by the station? Do they get paid by each story?

It seems like you see the same reporter every day for weeks, then you don’t see them for weeks at a time.

— Tammy via email

Rob: The details can vary from station-to-station but generally a freelancer in broadcast news is someone who works for a station on a regular or irregular basis and is paid by the hour (or shift) rather than being salaried. These jobs typically come with no vacation benefits (health insurance coverage varies by station) but freelance positions can allow greater flexibility for the freelancer.

To be sure, freelancers are the exception, not the rule. Most of the reporters viewers see on local TV newscasts are on staff. But some stations, especially KDKA, also have freelancers, some of whom work a 40-hour week and others who are called in to work only as needed.

Among local stations, KDKA seems to have the most regular freelancers, including recent arrivals Jessica Guay and Bryant Reed and longtime reporter/fill-in anchor Kym Gable.

Sarafina James started working for WPXI-TV as a freelancer in September. Last week she joined the staff full time.

James, a 2008 Penn Hills high School grad and a 2012 Point Park University grad, got her start in TV news at WTOV-TV in Steubenville before moving to stations in Little Rock, Ark., Clarksburg, W.Va., and Tampa, Fla.

In August 2020, James was working in Tampa, two weeks away from her wedding to now-husband Justin James, a development associate at California University of Pennsylvania, when she decided she needed to move back to Western Pennsylvania.

“We met in 2015 and not once have we ever lived in the same city, the same state,” she said. “I was like, ‘I can’t believe once I say, “I do,” I’m going back to Florida and you’re going back to Pennsylvania.’ I can’t imagine starting a marriage that way, so I made the tough decision to leave Florida and come home because in the middle of the pandemic it seemed more likely I’d get work — freelance or as a journalist in some capacity — than he would in higher education.”

James said she “took that leap of faith” and found it rewarded when she approached WPXI and got the offer to do freelance work.

“I was thinking I’d work here and there but I was almost full-time freelance,” James said. “I was constantly working. It blew my mind.”

She was working days as a freelancer but now that she’s full time she’ll be reporting for Channel 11’s 10 and 11 p.m. newscasts.

“People are always like, ‘I can’t believe you left Florida, you left the beach,’ and, yeah, I can’t believe I did that, but now I can’t imagine being anywhere else other than being home in Pittsburgh with my husband, my family, we bought our first house. This is my beach, this is my paradise. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else,” James said. “If you asked me that when I was packing up my apartment in Florida after quitting my job in a pandemic, I probably would have looked at you crazy… but it worked out, thankfully.”

Q: What happened to Edgar, Sig’s brother, who used to be on The Northwestern on “Deadliest Catch”?

— Tom, Elizabeth

Rob: In 2018 he pled guilty to sexual assault and is no longer on the show.

Q: Will “The Amazing Race” be back on CBS post-pandemic?

— Justin, Squirrel Hill

Rob: The CBS reality competition mainstay was filming a new season when the pandemic hit and production had to shut down.

In a recent interview, executive producers Bertram van Munster and Elise Doganieri told me they are in talks with CBS about resuming filming.

“I think as soon as its safe, they definitely want us to finish up where we left off,” Doganieri said, adding she’s not entirely sure how picking up again will work, if teams will return to where they stopped the race in Europe or begin anew somewhere else.

But van Munster said he filmed host Phil Keoghan telling the teams the race was being paused due to covid-19 spread when producers, in consultation with CBS executives, made the decision to stop production on Feb. 28, 2020.

“I did shoot a segway for that purpose,” van Munster said.

“The most important thing for us on anything that we do is the safety of the people that we’re working with,” Doganieri said.

In the meantime, a travel-adventure competition from the producing pair filmed pre-covid in October 2019, “Race to the Center of the Earth,” is now airing Mondays at 10 p.m. on National Geographic Channel.

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