places to string

can anyone recommend some big-market papers that make liberal use of stringers? i know bigger papers have different policies regarding who they get to do their free-lance work, so are there any out there that would likely provide plenty of opportunities to someone with staff writer credentials and experience?
better yet, what papers pay for free-lance features?

 

It's pretty tough in today's newspaper climate to expect many major metros to hire freelancers for features. The best thing you can do is use a local angle, that's probably my only advice..

Best thing to do with a big, in-depth feature is to comb the market, email all around....

 

Sometimes big metros will pay for women's hoops gamers if their hometown school is good (ranked)... Or, they'll pay for an advance feature for a college football/basketball game. Like, say you live in Seattle and their big team is coming to play UW and UW is really good. You could pitch an advance feature or sider from the game. Those are the hits I usually get for freelance work. Also, and this is random, the two Hawaii papers tend to be interested when anyone from Hawaii does anything noteworthy.