The Big Issue: Difference between revisions

{{further|Street newspaper#Differing approaches}}

''The Big Issue'' has been the centre of much controversy among publishers of street newspapers, mainly because of its business model.<ref name=review/><ref name=Sthlm>{{cite web | url=http://www.nyaorganisationer.soch.lu.se/SituationSthlm.html | access-date=12 February 2009 | last=Magnusson | first=Jan A. | title=The transnational street paper movement | work=[[Situation Sthlm]] | url-status=dead | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060629073232/http://www.nyaorganisationer.soch.lu.se/SituationSthlm.html | archive-date=29 June 2006 }}</ref> 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.<ref name=UNESCO/><ref name="Howley">{{cite book |last=Howley |first=Kevin |title=Community Media |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2005 |edition=illustrated |page=71 |isbn=0-521-79228-2 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MslR_FE5SI4C&pg=PA71|access-date=12 February 2009}}</ref> 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.<ref name=UNESCO/><ref name="Howley" /> Other papers have also criticised ''The Big Issue'' for its professional production and limited participation by homeless individuals in writing and producing the newspaper.<ref name=review/> 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, Baron Bird|John Bird]] has said that it is "possible to be both profitable and ethically correct".<ref name=UNESCO/>

 

== Awards ==