Editor-in-chief | Paul McNamee [1] |
---|---|
Categories | Entertainment and Current Affairs |
Frequency | weekly |
Circulation | 57,059 (as of 2022) [2] |
First issue | September 1991 |
Company | The Big Issue [3] |
Country | United Kingdom Australia Ireland Japan South Africa South Korea Namibia Kenya Taiwan [4] Malawi [5] |
Based in | London, United Kingdom [6] |
Language | English (UK Edition) |
Website | bigissue.com |
The Big Issue is a United Kingdom-based street newspaper founded by John Bird and Gordon Roddick in September 1991 and published in four continents. The Big Issue is one of the UK's leading social businesses and exists to offer homeless people, or individuals at risk of homelessness, the opportunity to earn a legitimate income, thereby helping them to reintegrate into mainstream society. It is the world's most widely circulated street newspaper. [7] [8]
Inspired by Street News , a newspaper sold by homeless people in New York City, The Big Issue was founded in 1991 by John Bird and Gordon Roddick (husband of The Body Shop entrepreneur Anita Roddick) as a response to the increasing numbers of homeless people in London. [9] [10] The Body Shop provided the equivalent of $50,000 in start-up capital. [11] The magazine was initially published monthly but in June 1993, The Big Issue went weekly. The venture continued to expand with national editions being established in Scotland and Wales, as well as regional editions for Northern England and South West England. Further editions are also produced in seven locations overseas.
In 1995, The Big Issue Foundation was founded to offer additional support and advice to vendors around issues such as housing, health, personal finance and addiction. Between 2007 and 2011, the circulation of The Big Issue declined from 167,000 to less than 125,000. Competition between vendors also increased at this time. From July 2011, the different regional editions were merged into a single UK-wide magazine. [12] In January 2012, the magazine was relaunched, with an increased focus on campaigning and political journalism. New columnists were added, including the Premier League footballer Joey Barton, Rachel Johnson, Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park [13] and Samira Ahmed. The cover price was also increased. [14] [15]
In 2016, The Big Issue celebrated surpassing 200 million magazine sales. [16] In September 2021, the magazine celebrated its 30th birthday. [17]
The magazine is produced by the Big Issue Company Ltd. The company is a self-sustaining business that generates income through magazine sales and advertising revenues. Financially, The Big Issue is a social enterprise. The Big Issue Foundation is the registered charity arm of the organisation. It aims to underpin the company's work by tackling the underlying causes of homelessness.
There are nine Big Issue projects by the same name in other nations.
This section needs to be updated.(June 2012) |
The Big Issue has been the centre of much controversy among publishers of street newspapers, mainly because of its business model. [8] [30] Publishers of some other street newspapers, especially in the United States, have criticised it for being overly "commercial" and having a flashy design. According to these critics, street newspapers ought to focus on covering political and social issues that affect the homeless, rather than emulating mainstream newspapers to generate a profit. [11] [31] Publishers of some smaller papers, such as Making Change in Santa Monica, California, said they felt threatened when The Big Issue began to publish in their area. [11] [31] Other papers have also criticised The Big Issue for its professional production and limited participation by homeless individuals in writing and producing the newspaper. [8] Others, however, have stated that The Big Issue uses a successful business model to generate a profit to benefit the homeless, and its founder John Bird has said that it is "possible to be both profitable and ethically correct". [11]
Ernst & Young Global Limited, trade name EY, is a multinational professional services partnership. EY is one of the largest professional services networks in the world. Along with Deloitte, KPMG and PwC, it is considered one of the Big Four accounting firms. It primarily provides assurance, tax, information technology services, consulting, and advisory services to its clients.
The Independent is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the Indy, it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was published on Saturday 26 March 2016, leaving only the online edition.
The Sunday Herald was a Scottish Sunday newspaper, published between 7 February 1999 and 2 September 2018. Originally a broadsheet, it was published in compact format from 20 November 2005. The paper was known for having combined a centre-left stance with support for Scottish devolution, and later Scottish independence. The last edition of the newspaper was published on 2 September 2018 and it was replaced with Sunday editions of The Herald and The National.
Real Change is a weekly progressive street newspaper based in Seattle, Washington, USA written by professional staff and sold by self-employed vendors, many of whom are homeless. The paper provides them with an alternative to panhandling and covers a variety of social justice issues, including homelessness and poverty. It became weekly in 2005, making it the second American street newspaper ever to be published weekly. Real Change is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization with an annual budget of $950,000.
Street newspapers are newspapers or magazines sold by homeless or poor individuals and 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 homeless communities. Street papers aim to give these individuals both employment opportunities and a voice in their community. In addition to being sold by homeless individuals, many of these papers are partially produced and written by them.
StreetWise is a street magazine sold by people without homes or those at-risk for homelessness in Chicago. Topics covered depend on what is happening in Chicago at the time.
Spare Change News (SCN) is a street newspaper founded in 1992 in Boston, Massachusetts for the Greater Boston Area and published out of the editorial offices in Cambridge, Massachusetts through the efforts of the Homeless Empowerment Project (HEP), a grassroots organization created to help end homelessness.
Guy Laliberté, is a Canadian billionaire businessman, and poker player. Along with Gilles Ste-Croix, he is the co-founder of Cirque du Soleil in 1984. The Canadian circus company's shows have since been seen by more than 90 million people worldwide. Before founding the company, he had busked, performing as an accordion player, stiltwalker, and fire-eater.
Street Sense is a weekly street newspaper sold by self-employed homeless distributors ("vendors") on the streets of Washington, D.C., the capital city of the United States. It is published by the 501(c)(3) nonprofit Street Sense Media, which also produces documentary filmmaking, photography, theatre, illustration and poetry. The organization says this media, most of which is created by homeless and formerly homeless people, is designed to break down stereotypes and educate the community.
Street Roots is a Portland, Oregon, United States based homeless advocacy group and a weekly alternative newspaper that covers homeless issues. The newsprint is sold by and for the homeless in Portland. The paper is published every week and sold through vendors who are currently or formerly homeless.The paper's editorial position is homeless advocacy. Vendors purchase the paper for 25 cents and sell them for $1 and keep the difference of 75 cents. The paper features alternative news, interviews, and poetry written by local journalists as well as the homeless and those who work with them.
John Anthony Bird, Baron Bird, is a British social entrepreneur and life peer. He is best known as the co-founder of The Big Issue, a magazine that is edited by professional journalists and sold by street vendors who are homeless or vulnerably-housed.
Faktum is a street newspaper sold by homeless people in Gothenburg, and other cities in southern Sweden. It is the equivalent of Situation Sthlm in Stockholm, Aluma in Malmö, Lund and Helsingborg, and The Big Issue in English-speaking countries.
Street News was a street newspaper sold by homeless people in New York City. Established in 1989, it was founded and launched by Hutchinson Persons and Wendy Oxenhorn, this was the starting of the American street newspaper movement, and provided a way of self-sufficiency to the many homeless and unemployed people in New York, starting at the price of $1 of which 25 cents was used to maintain the business and 75 cents was the profit for the vendors.
Das Megaphon is a street newspaper sold by homeless in Graz and other cities in Styria, Austria. It was started in October 1995 and is run by Catholic charity Caritas. The paper is published monthly with a circulation of about 13,000 copies. It is sold mostly by Nigerian and Liberian male refugees. Megaphon was one of the street papers initiating the Homeless World Cup in 2001 and hosted the first cup in 2003.
The Homeless Grapevine was a street newspaper sold by homeless in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. It was published by the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless (NEOCH) from 1992 to 2009. Vendors bought the paper for 25 cents per copy and sell them for 1 dollar. The papers attempted to be a voice for the homeless and content was entirely dedicated to homeless issues, much of it written by current or former homeless. It was a monthly magazine of 16 pages and as of 2004 had a circulation of 5,000 copies sold by 15–20 vendors. Sellers were often at The West Side Market, Public Square, E. 9th St., East 12th and Coventry.
The Jeepney Magazine is a street newspaper sold by poor and homeless people in the Philippines. It was launched in March 2008 with two purposes: to write for and about the poor, and to provide them with jobs to make a living. It is sold for 100 pesos, half of which the seller keeps. Selling 10 copies per day is expected to eventually let the sellers exceed the minimum wage by 40 percent. The Jeepney Magazine is published by the Urban Opportunities for Change Foundation and is a member of the International Network of Street Papers. The name refers to the Jeepney, the most popular means of public transportation in the Philippines and a symbol of Philippine culture.
The Big Issue Malawi is a street paper in Malawi. It is a bimonthly magazine sold only by homeless individuals. The project's facilitator is a local charity known as the "Culture Awakening Society"
Phil Ryan is an English musician, writer and entrepreneur. He has toured with The Animals and is co-founder of The Big Issue and The 12 Bar Club.
The Big Issue in Australia is a street newspaper which began in 1996. The Australian edition of the paper is a project of the UK-based The Big Issue. The first magazine was launched in Australia on the steps of Melbourne’s Flinders Street railway station on 16 June 1996.