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Street newspapers, or street papers, are newspapers or magazines that are sold by homeless or poor individuals and are produced mainly to support these populations. Most such newspapers primarily provide coverage about homelessness and poverty-related issues, and seek to strengthen social networks within the community of homeless individuals and service providers. Street papers also aim to give these individuals employment opportunities, and a voice. They are sold by homeless individuals, and many are partially produced and written by them. Finally, many street newspapers seek to educate non-homeless readers about homelessness, although others focus more on mainstream news.

Several publications by charity, religious, and labor organizations in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were meant to draw attention to the homeless. Modern street newspapers did not become common until the 1990s, after the founding of New York City's Street News in 1989. Similar papers are now published in over 30 countries, with most street newspapers located in the United States and Western Europe. They are supported by governments, charities, and coalitions such as the International Network of Street Papers and the North American Street Newspaper Association. Although street newspapers have become more common since the 1990s, many still face challenges, including funding shortages, unreliable staff, and difficulty in generating interest and maintaining an audience.

All street newspapers are sold mainly by homeless individuals, but there is variation in how much content is submitted by the homeless and how much of the coverage pertains to homeless people and issues affecting them: while some papers are written and published mainly by homeless contributors, others have professional staff and attempt to emulate more mainstream publications. These differences have caused ongoing controversy among street newspaper publishers over what sort of material should be covered in street newspapers and to what extent the homeless should participate in writing and production. One popular street newspaper, The Big Issue, has been the focus of much of this controversy because it concentrates on attracting mainstream readers to earn a greater profit to benefit the homeless, whereas other newspapers emphasize homeless advocacy and social issues and earn less of a profit.

History

Historical foundations

Although the modern street newspaper began with the 1989 publication of Street News in New York City, newspapers sold by the poor and homeless to provide income and bring attention to social problems actually date back to the late 19th century: Norma Fay Green has cited The War Cry, created by the Salvation Army in London in 1879, as an early form of "dissident, underground, alternative publication". The War Cry was sold by Salvation Army officers and the working poor to draw peoples' attention to the poor living conditions of these individuals. Another precursor to the modern street newspaper was Hobo News, which ran from 1915 to 1930 and featured writing from prominent labor and social activists and Industrial Workers of the World members, alongside contributions of oral history, creative writing, and artwork from hoboes, or itinerant beggars. Another influential paper was The Catholic Worker, founded in 1933; this and most other street papers published before 1970 were affiliated with religious organizations. Like workers' papers and other forms of alternative media in the late 1800s and early 1900s, early street newspapers were often created because the founders believed mainstream news did not cover issues that were relevant to ordinary people.

Modern street newspapers

Modern street newspapers began to emerge in the United States in the late 1980s, in response to increasing levels of homelessness and homeless advocates' dissatisfaction with mainstream media portrayals of the homeless. Street News, founded in late 1989 in New York City, is normally cited as the first "modern" street newspaper. Many more street papers were launched in the early 1990s, crediting the high-profile New York paper as their inspiration. During the early 1990s an average of five new papers were created every year. This rapid growth has been attributed both to changing attitudes and policies towards homeless individuals, and to the ease of publishing provided by desktop computers; William Shaw, the editor of the Phillipines' Jeepney, has also claimed that government support, especially in the western world, has been influential in allowing street newspapers to thrive. Since 1989, the concept has spread to include at least 100 papers in over 30 countries. In 2008, an estimated 32 million people worldwide read street newspapers, and 250,000 poor, disadvantaged, or homeless individuals sold or contributed to them.

By the 21st century, street papers had been started in many major cities worldwide. There are now street newspapers in Canada; in European nations, including France, Russia, Germany, and Sweden (where the street papers Aluma, Situation Sthlm and Faktum won the 2006 grand prize award for journalism of the Swedish Publicists' Association); in the southern hemisphere (Brazil and The Gambia); and in Asia (the Phillipines, Vietnam, India and Japan). The majority of street newspapers, however, are still in the United States and Western Europe. Within the United States, some street newspapers (such as Chicago's bilingual Hasta Cuando, are published in languages other than English.

In the mid-1990s, coalitions were established to strengthen the street newspaper movement. The International Network of Street Papers (founded in 1994) and the North American Street Newspaper Association (founded in 1997) aim to provide support for street papers and to "uphold ethical standards". In particular, the INSP was established to help groups that were starting new street newspapers, to bring more mainstream media attention to the street newspaper movement during the 1990s, and to support interaction and cross-talk between street paper publishers and staff from different countries. INSP and NASNA voted to combine their resources in 2006; they have also collaborated to found the Street News Service, a project which collects articles from member papers and archives them on the Internet. National street paper coalitions have also been formed in Europe—there is a national coalition in Italy, and the Netherlands has the Straatmedia Groep Nederland.

Description

Most street newspapers have three main purposes:

• To provide income and job skills to the homeless and other marginalized individuals, who act as vendors of and often contributors to the newspapers
• To provide coverage of, and educate the general public about issues pertaining to homelessness and poverty
• To establish or social networks within the homeless community, and between homeless individuals and service providers

The defining characteristic of a street newspaper is that of being sold by homeless or marginalized vendors. While many street newspapers also aim to provide coverage of social issues and educate the public about homelessness, this goal is often secondary: many people who buy street newspapers do so to support and express solidarity with the homeless vendor, rather than to read the paper.

The precise demographics of the readership of street newspapers is unclear. A pair of 1993 surveys conducted by Chicago's StreetWise suggested that the paper's readers at the time tended to be college-educated, with slightly over half being female, and slightly over half unmarried.

Operations and business

Most street newspapers operate by selling the papers to homeless vendors for a fraction of the retail price (usually between 10% and 50%), after which the vendors sell the papers for the retail price and retain all the proceeds from street sales. The income vendors earn from sales is intended to help them "get back on their feet". The purpose of requiring vendors to purchase papers up front and earn back the money by selling them is to help them develop skills in managing finances. Vendors for most newspapers are identifiable by badges or messenger bags. Many newspapers also require that vendors sign a code of conduct or otherwise "clean up their act". While most street newspaper vendors in the United States and United Kingdom are homeless individuals, in many other countries (especially in Europe) papers are also sold by refugees.

Street papers get started in a variety of ways. Some, such as Street Sense, are started by homeless or formerly homeless individuals, whereas others are more professional ventures. Many, particularly in the United States, receive aid from local government and charities, and coalitions such as the International Network of Street Papers and the North American Street Newspaper Association provide workshops and support for new street papers. Many develop in a bottom-up fashion, starting up through volunteer work and "newcomers to the media business" and gradually expanding to include professionals. For most papers, the majority of revenue comes from sales, donations, and government grants, while some receive advertising revenue from local businesses. There has been some disagreement among street newspaper publishers and supporters over whether papers should accept advertising, with some arguing that advertising is practical and helps support the paper, and others claiming that many kinds of advertisements are inappropriate in a paper that is mainly geared towards the poor.

Specific business models for street newspapers vary widely, and range from vendor-managed papers that place the highest value upon homeless empowerment and involvement to highly professionalized and commercialized weeklies. Likewise, some papers (especially in Europe) operate as autonomous businesses, while others operate as parts of existing organizations or projects.Some papers are very successful, such as the UK-based The Big Issue, which in 2001 sold nearly 300,000 copies a week and earned the equivalent of over 20 million USD in profits, but most papers sell as few as 3,000 copies a month and barely generate a profit at all for the publishers.

Coverage

Most street newspapers report on issues regarding homelessness and poverty, and sometimes function as a main source of information on policy changes and other practical issues that are relevant to the homeless but may go unreported in mainstream media. Many papers also feature contributions from the homeless and the poor in addition to articles by activists and community organizers. For example, the first edition of Washington, D.C.'s Street Sense included a description of a prominent homeless community, an interview with a congresswoman, an editorial about the costs and benefits of taking a job, several poems about homelessness, a how-to column, and a section for recipes. Likewise, a 2009 issue of the Lawrence, Kansas-based Change of Heart included a story on the recent bulldozing of a homeless camp, a review of a book on homelessness, a description of the Family Promise organization for homeless support, and a list of community resources, much of this content being submitted by the homeless. Many papers also feature profiles of individual street newspaper vendors. The writing style in street newspapers is often simple and clear; social scientist Kevin Howley describes street newspapers as having a "native eloquence".

According to Howley, street newspapers are similar to citizen journalism in that both are a response to the perceived shortcomings of mainstream media and because they both encourage involvement by non-professionals. A major difference between the two, however, is that the citizen journal movement does not necessarily advocate a particular position, whereas street newspapers openly advocate for the homeless and poor.

Unlike most street newspapers, the UK-based The Big Issue focuses mostly on celebrity news and interviews, rather than coverage of homelessness and poverty. It is still sold by homeless vendors and uses the bulk of its proceeds to support homeless individuals and advocacy organizations for the homeless, but the paper's content is mostly written by professional staff and geared towards a broad audience. Because of its professional nature and high production values, it has been a frequent target of criticism in an ongoing debate between professional and grassroots ideals of how street newspapers should work.

Social benefits

In addition to providing some individuals with income and employment, street newspapers are intended to give homeless participants responsibility and independence, and to create a tight-knit homeless community. Many street papers also offer additional programs to vendors, such as job training, housing placement assistance, and referral to other direct services. Others operate as a program of a larger social services organization—for instance, Chicago's StreetWise can refer vendors to providers of "drug and alcohol treatment, high school equivalency classes, career counseling, and permanent housing". Most street newspapers are also engaged in some form of organizing and advocacy regarding homelessness and poverty, and many function as "watchdogs" for the local homeless communities. Howley has described street newspapers as a means of mobilizing the networks of "formal and informal relationships that exist between the homeless, the unemployed, and the working poor, and shelter managers, healthcare workers, community organizers, and others who work on their behalf".

Challenges and criticisms

In the early days of street newspapers, people were often reluctant to buy from homeless vendors for fear that it was a scam. Furthermore, of the more activist papers, many fail to sell well because their writing and production are perceived as unprofessional and lackluster. Topics covered are sometimes seen as lacking newsworthy content, and of little relevance or interest to either the general public or the homeless community—organizations in Montreal and San Francisco have responded to these criticisms by offering workshops in writing and journalism for homeless contributors. Papers such as StreetWise have in the past been criticized for being too "grim", and for the vendors' being too loud and intrusive. Some newspapers sell well but may not be widely read, as many people will donate to vendors without buying, or buy the newspaper and then throw it away. Howley has described readers' hesitance or unwillingness to read the papers as "compassion fatigue". On the other hand, those papers that do sell well and are widely read, such as The Big Issue, are often targets of criticism for being too "mainstream" or commercialized.

Other difficulties street newspapers face include high turnover of "transient" or unreliable staff, lack of adequate funding, lack of journalistic freedom for papers that are funded by local government, and, among some demographics, lack of interest in homeless issues. For example, journalism professor Jim Cunningham has attributed the difficulties in selling Calgary's Calgary Street Talk to the fact that the mostly middle-class, conservative population has "not enough sensitivity to the causes of homelessness". Finally, anti-homeless legislation often targets street newspapers and vendors; for example, in New York City and Cleveland, laws have prevented vendors from selling papers on public transit or other high-traffic areas, making it difficult for the papers to earn revenue.

Debate among street newspapers

Among proponents and publishers of street newspapers there is disagreement over how street newspapers should be run and what their goals should be, reflecting a so-called "clash between two philosophies for advocating social change". On one side of the debate are papers that seek to function like a business and generate a profit and a wide readership in order to benefit the homeless in a practical way; on the other are papers that seek to provide a "voice" to the homeless and poor without watering down their message for a broad readership.

Controversy surrounding The Big Issue, the world's most widely circulated street newspaper, is good example of these two schools of thought. The Big Issue is mostly a tabloid covering celebrity news; while it is sold by the homeless and generates a profit that is used to benefit the homeless, the content is not written by them and there is little coverage of social issues that are relevant to them. In the late 1990s when the London-based paper began making plans to enter markets in the United States, many American street newspaper publishers reacted defensively, saying they could not compete with the production values and mainstream appeal of the professionally-produced The Big Issue. The reaction to The Big Issue raised what is now an ongoing conflict between commercialized, professional papers and more grassroots-style ones, with papers such as The Big Issue emulating mainstream papers and magazines in order to generate a large profit to invest in homeless issues, and other focusing on political and social issues rather than on content that will generate money. Some street newspaper proponents believe that the primary aim of the papers should be to give homeless individuals a voice and to "fill the void" in mainstream media coverage, whereas others believe it should be to provide homeless individuals with jobs and an income.

Other frequent areas of disagreement include to what extent the homeless should participate in the writing and printing of street newspapers, and whether street newspapers should open themselves up to advertising in order to generate revenue. Kevin Howley sums up the division between different street newspaper models as a question of whether it is "possible (or desirable for that matter) to publish a dissident newspaper—that is, a publication committed to progressive social change—and still attract a wide audience".

Notes

1. Another author claims the paper had a shorter lifespan, running "from the late 1910s to the early 1920s" (Heinz 2004:534).
2. Although Portland, Oregon's Homeless Times was founded before it, Street News is the earliest-published paper that is still active (North American Street Newspaper Association 2008). The first volume of Homeless Times was published as early as 1986 ("Guide to the Housing and Feeding the Homeless Program, 1981-2000". Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library. 2005. Retrieved 25 February 2009.).
3. In 1999, Germany had more street newspapers than the rest of Europe combined (Hanks & Switchinbank 1999:154).
4. Some street newspapers, however, work differently, having vendors pay back a portion of the proceeds after selling the paper (Corporal 2009).
5. Although The Big Issue has attracted attention and controversy because of its stature, it is not the only street newspaper that follows a business-oriented model. Numerous other street newspapers work in a similar way, with The Big Issue being the most well-known example of a whole category of street newspapers (Green 1998:47).

References

1. ^ Harman, Danna (17 November 2003). "Read all about it: street papers flourish across the US". Retrieved 13 January 2009. Archived version
2. ^ Boukhari, Sophie (1999). "The press takes to the street". The UNESCO Courier. UNESCO.
3. ^ Howley 2005:62.
4. ^ Howley 2005:63.
5. ^ Heinz 2004:535.
6. ^ "About Street Papers". North American Street Newspaper Association. 7 November 2008. Retrieved 12 February 2009.
7. Heinz 2004:534.
8. ^ Green 1998:47.
9. Howley 2003:1.
10. ^ Brown, Ann M. (2002). "Small Papers, Big Issues". Ryerson Review of Journalism. Retrieved 12 February 2009.
11. ^ Heinz 2004:536.
12. "Get Acquainted". Coalition on Homelessness, San Francisco. Retrieved 13 January 2009.
13. "The Big Issue History". The Big Issue. Retrieved 13 January 2009.
14. ^ Corporal, Lynette Lee (13 November 2009). "Jobs Come Aboard 'Jeepney' Street Paper". Asia Media Forum. Retrieved 12 February 2009. Alternate link.
15. ^ "Street News (transcript)". The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. Public Broadcasting Service. 15 December 2004. Retrieved 12 February 2009.
16. The International Network of Street Papers alone has 94 member papers across 36 countries. "Our Street Papers". International Network of Street Papers. Retrieved 2009-02-11.
17. Howley 2003:2.
18. Holender, Robert (2006-05-22). "De hemlösas tidningar prisades". Dagens Nyheter (in Swedish). Retrieved 2009-02-11.
19. "Röster åt utsatta fick publicistpris". Ekot (in Swedish). Sveriges Radio. 2006-05-22. Retrieved 2009-02-11.
20. Hoang Dinh Nam (15 October 2008). "A street newspaper vendor looks at the building of the Hanoi..." Getty Images. Retrieved 12 February 2009.
21. ^ Magnusson, Jan A. "The transnational street paper movement". Situation Sthlm. Retrieved 12 February 2009.
22. ^ Heinz 2004:538.
23. ^ Heinz 2004:539.
24. Hanks & Swithinbank 1999:155–6.
25. Harris, Timothy (5 October 2006). "Director's Corner". Real Change News. Retrieved 12 February 2009.
26. Hanks & Swithinbank 1999:154.
27. Calhoun, Patricia (18 February 2009). "Meet the MasterMind Class of 2009". Westword. Retrieved 12 March 2009.
28. ^ Torck 2001:372.
29. Green 1998:42.
30. "How We Work". The Big Issue. Retrieved 10 February 2009.
31. ^ Condron, Courtney (23 August 2007). "Lawrence Streetpaper receives grant". University Daily Kansan. Retrieved 13 January 2009.
32. "About StreetWise Vendors". StreetWise. Retrieved 13 January 2009.
33. Such as The Big Issue: "How We Work". The Big Issue. Retrieved 13 January 2009.
34. Hanks & Swithinbank 1999:153–4.
35. Roy, M.G. (7 December 2006). "Sweets on the Street: Change of Heart, Lawrence's homeless newspaper is ten years old this year". The Lawrencian. Retrieved 12 February 2009.
36. Green 1998:38.
37. ^ Green 1998:41–2.
38. ^ Howley 2003:9.
39. Hanks & Swithinbank 1999:155.
40. Howley 2003:8.
41. Ed. Craig Sweets. Change of Heart: A voice for Lawrence's Homeless People. Vol. 12, no. 1 (Winter 2009).
42. Green 1998:43–4.
43. Howley 2005:64.
44. Howley 2003:1–2; 7.
45. ^ Howley 2003:11.
46. Green 1998:36.
47. ^ "Homeless Journalists Hone Their Reporting Skills". American News Service, n.d. in Heinz 2004.
    " have traditionally been long on personal essays and short on hard news".
48. Green 1998:40–1.
49. Green 1998:36, 40.
50. ^ Howley 2003:10.
51. Green 1998:46.

Bibliography

• Green, Norma Fay (1998). "Chicago's StreetWise at the Crossroads: A Case Study of a Newspaper to Empower the Homeless in the 1990s". Print Culture in a Diverse America. eds. James Philip Danky, Wayne A. Wiegand. University of Illinois Press. pp. 34–55. ISBN 0252066995.
• Hanks, Sinead (1999). "The Big Issue and other street papers: a response to homelessness". Environment and Urbanization. 9 (1): 149–158. doi:10.1177/095624789700900112. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Heinz, Teresa L. (2004). "Street Newspapers". In David Levinson (ed.). Encyclopedia of Homelessness. SAGE Publications. pp. 534–9. ISBN 0761927514.
• Howley, Kevin (2003). "A Poverty of Voices: Street Papers as Communicative Democracy". Journalism. 4 (3): 273–292. doi:10.1177/14648849030043002.
• Howley, Kevin (2005). Community Media: People, Places, and Communication Technologies. Cambridge University Press. pp. 62–4. ISBN 0521792282.
• Torck, Danièle (2001). "Voices of Homeless People in Street Newspapers: A Cross-Cultural Exploration". Discourse and Society. 12 (3): 271–392. doi:10.1177/0957926501012003005.

External links

• Street News Service, aggregator of articles from street newspapers
• International Network of Street Papers
• North American Street Newspaper Association
• Directory of street newspapers on Google Directory

• Alternative press
• Community and social services occupations
• Homelessness
• Journalism genres
• Poverty
• Street newspapers