JOIN USStreet papers thrive as industry falters
The economic crisis has many conventional newspapers struggling for survival, but weeklies and monthlies sold by homeless people around the globe appear to be weathering the downturn.
For the most part, aid to the indigent, not profit, is the bottom-line goal of these street papers. The majority survive on circulation sales, subsidies and donations. “I was concerned that 2008 and 2009 might see a drop in sales, but that hasn’t happened,” said Paolo Brivio of ‘Scarp de’tenis’, whose name means Tennis Shoes in Italian.
Scarp is a 14-year-old monthly paper based in Milan with a circulation of 15,000. In December, the paper was introduced in five other Italian cities. Like many of its kind, Scarp focuses on issues affecting the poor and is perceived as “an instrument of solidarity”.
As times get tough, Brivio said, readers understand “that we all have to help each other”.
But with more than 100 different street papers being published in about 40 countries in Europe Asia, Africa, Australia and North and South America, each operating according to its own business model, it is difficult to evaluate the long-term prospects of this niche sector.
“We haven’t been hearing any disaster stories, but it’s hard to collect figures in great detail,” said Lisa Maclean, executive director of the International Network of Street Papers, which is host to a conference on the future of these publications this month in Norway.
Independent of revenue
Most street papers are independently run by local charities that cover costs when circulation falls short. Government grants also help in many cases. Advertising tends not to be a major source of revenue.
Often, street papers barely break even. But for many, that is not the point.
What counts is the social enterprise philosophy behind the venture said Brivio, whose paper is backed by Caritas, the Catholic charity.
Lisa of the Network of Street Papers said no hard numbers existed, but her group estimated that street papers around the world had assisted “250,000 homeless people since 1994”.
Scarp’s approximately 80 vendors do not receive salaries, but they keep part of the $3.31 cover price, returning the copies they do not sell. But peddling papers for petty cash is only part of a long-term plan to integrate the homeless vendor back into the mainstream work force by building up self-confidence and social interaction. Street newspapers first started in the US in the late 1980s, and the recent crisis has driven up circulation there, as well as the number of vendors.
In Europe, the market leader is ‘The Big Issue’, the London-based publication founded in 1991 by A John Bird, the editor in chief, and Gordon Roddick, who also co-founded ‘The Body Shop’. The British edition sells 1,47,000 copies a week, with an annual revenue of about $18 million. There are eight editions published under ‘The Big Issue’ banner in Australia, Japan and several African countries. Profit — when there is any — is used by the organisation’s charitable foundation, which helps vendors with health, housing and finance issues. Last year, the paper says, it broke even.