[nicholassmith]

As an amateur photographer I've actually been in the same boat, but with an unnamed newspaper in the UK, it's an interesting process. It's also ridiculously common for media companies to use photography without licensing it properly, and whilst I've heard the argument of "don't post it if you don't want it using" it just doesn't work. The world would be a poorer place if creatives felt that they had to sequester their work away to maintain their own rights of control over their product.

Plus most of the time if you approach a photographer first you're going to get a much better deal than when you've decided that licensing it properly wasn't important.