A-Infos (en) The Big Issue's Move Into Los Angeles

["Lyn Gerry" <redlyn@loop.com>]

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------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
Date:          Thu, 12 Feb 1998 22:42:41 -0800 (PST)
From:          Bathrobespierre <norse@netcom.com>
Subject:       The Big Issue's Move Into Los Angeles


Subject: Big Issue: Harris Letter

From: Terry Messman
February 12, 1998

Dear Timothy Harris:

I am writing in response to your February 10 letter asking NASNA members 
to let you know whether they agree or disagree with your position 
regarding the controversy over the Big Issue moving into Los Angeles. 
Simply put, I don't agree at all with the course you are following.

My attached editorial on the Big Issue discusses the disagreement I have 
with their recent actions in Los Angeles. I ask you to read it carefully 
again. 

The Big Issue could have chosen to handle this so differently. They could 
have chosen to set up shop in a city that didn't have a homeless paper 
that was trying to establish itself. They could have worked respectfully 
with local grass-roots activists and homeless people to help them set up 
their own, wholly controlled, wholly independent street paper as a sign 
of mutual support and good will, instead of avariciously rushing into the 
United States seeking to expand their paper empire. They could have 
treated NASNA respectfully and dialogued with us honestly about their 
U.S. plans instead of failing to keep their stated promises to meet and 
consult with NASNA and with Jennafer Waggoner. Instead, they secretively 
launched the Big Issue in Los Angeles in a manner guaranteed to make it 
much more difficult, if not impossible, for Jennafer Waggoner to 
successfully establish her fledgling paper, Making Change.

They did none of these things. They broke their promise to NASNA to meet 
and consult with us before opening up shop in a city where a NASNA member has
 already started publishing a street paper. They broke their word to 
Jennafer to meet and consult with her. They broke many of our deeply held 
values about mutual support and solidarity, and, evidently, the terms of 
their own INSP Street Charter as well.  

They came to Los Angeles in a hostile and competitive manner and used 
their large corporate budget and power to infringe on the territory of a 
NASNA member (whose editor they had met at the September NASNA 
conference). The ignored the moral appeal of Jennafer Waggoner, a NASNA 
member and principled homeless activist, who simply asked them to give 
her a fair chance to establish her fledgling paper.


They now have confirmed our worst beliefs about their true motivations by 
acting like carpetbaggers and empire builders. I hasten to add that it is 
patently false to accuse those of us who are opposing the Big Issue's 
actions as being "divisive" or starting a "war."  Neither Jennafer nor 
any of the rest of us tried to set up competing papers in London. The 
divisiveness was initiated by the Big Issue when it tried to carve out 
new markets in North American cities that already have authentic, 
grass-roots homeless papers published by local homeless advocates. 

And the only person I've heard express their willingness to wage "war" 
was Big Issue Editor John Bird in his cutting remarks to Jennafer 
Waggoner. Jennafer did not ask for and did not begin these ugly, divisive 
maneuvers founding convention of NASNA). They h the Big Issue did, in a 
manner that  the resembles the hostile acquisitiveness of big 
corporations, rather than th shared vision and common goals of the 
homeless movement.

So what is NASNA's role now? To offer Jennafer SOLIDARITY AND THE KIND OF
SUPPORT SHE HAS ASKED FOR   How exactly is a homeless woman supposed to 
succeed in setting up a fledgling paper if NASNA refuses to support her 
and fails to oppose the Big Issue's arrogant and competitive infringement?

A central goal of NASNA is to support fledgling street newspapers. The 
NASNA Executive Committee did precisely that with its unanimous vote to 
oppose the Big Issue's actions in solidarity with her. You wrote what I 
considered a good first letter stating that position to the Big Issue. 
You were acting as a responsible chairperson who represents the actions 
of NASNA, rather than simply your own personal agenda. But since then, I 
have been amazed and very disillusioned by your backsliding on this 
issue. I do not believe you are acting responsibly as a chairperson when 
you ignore a unanimous vote and begin to pursue your own personal 
strategy of appeasing the Big Issue. And even though you signed you 
February letter "in solidarity, Tim Harris," I believe you have refused 
to offer the kind of solidarity that Jennafer has expressed the greatest 
need for at this moment.

I truly don't get it. Is this what NASNA is going to be about? Refusing 
to stick up for a member, a fledgling street newspaper launched by a 
dedicated, homeless woman, thus jeopardizing her paper's very existence? 
What kind of support can the rest of us expect if we run into a similar 
plight? What is the purpose of NASNA if it doesn't include mutual support 
and solidarity at these crucial moments? Are we really committed to 
building a homeless movement, or do we just give in, sheep-like, to the 
corporate capitalist approach of letting the big-money boys squeeze out 
all competitors?

A final word, Tim. I know that there are other currents of opinion in 
NASNA about this issue. But I no longer see you as fairly representing 
the insights and ethical responses of those of us who feel that 
Jennafer's paper is being treated very unfairly here. You dismissively 
told me in our phone conversation that it was mostly those of us on the 
West Coast who have called in our opposition to the Big Issue9s actions 
in L.A. I remind you then and I remind you now that, yes indeed, many 
West Coast street papers have opposed the Big Issue's invasive maneuvers, 
which are, of course, directed at THE WEST COAST!  Just as Indio 
Washington forthrightly opposed their similar attempt to engulf and 
devour his paper on the EAST COAST.

Oh well, I guess it all falls under the category of "big business as 
usual." It's just that I thought that the street paper movement was 
dedicated to organizing against the kinds of economic injustices 
practiced by big business,  rather than adopting them.

Sincerely,
Terry Messman
Editor, Street Spirit
American Friends Service Committee


THE BIG ISSUE MEANS BIG BUSINESS AS USUAL
Street Spirit Editorial by Terry Messman

At the Seattle founding convention of the North America Street Newspaper 
Association (NASNA) last September, Big Issue representative Ruth Turner 
told the assembled street paper editors the Big Secret of Big Business. 
"There is so much money, money, money available from advertising," Turner 
said with great relish. "It's money for nothing."

It was a revealing self-portrait of an acquisitive corporation ruled by 
the profit motives of Big Business. For although the Big Issue is sold by 
homeless people, in truth it is a multinational corporation that 
cultivates advertising more than it fosters activism. As we are seeing in 
Los Angeles, it is more likely to emulate the hostile  take-over strategy 
of big corporations than to demonstrate the kind of mutual support and 
solidarity that must be the hallmarks of the homeless movement.

Founded and funded by the Body Shop corporation, the Big Issue has 
launched a
major bid to take over the large "market" for street newspapers it 
perceives in Los Angeles, arrogantly shouldering aside a pre-existing 
street paper, Making Change, produced by Jennafer Waggoner, a homeless 
woman and dedicated nonviolent activist. The Big Issue is charged by 
Waggoner with violating the Charter of the International Network of 
Street Papers (INSP), which prohibits members from staging hostile or 
competitive infringements on another street paper's territory.

Waggoner recently wrote to Big Issue Editor/Publisher John Bird: "Does 
not your INSP Charter state a member will not invade the established 
selling area of an existing charter member? My paper is a member of 
NASNA. NASNA is a member of
the INSP. This means Making Change is an INSP member whose territory you are
violating. How can we not see your moves and your motives as hostile?"

By ignoring its own INSP Charter, the Big Issue has triggered deep 
resentment in some homeless advocacy circles. NASNA's Executive Committee 
met on January 8 and agreed that it was "unanimously opposed to the Big 
Issue setting up in Los Angeles." The NASNA body discussed ways of 
"turning up the heat on the Big Issue," including "mobilizing allies in 
the global streetpaper movement to register protest, arranging a picket 
of their London headquarters, and registering complaints with their major 
funders." 

The Executive Board of the National Coalition for the Homeless also 
approved a resolution opposing the Big Issue's actions.  Big Issue Editor 
Bird wrote to NASNA that he was "very disturbed" by its opposition to his 
Los Angeles venture, and quickly reached for legal muscle to protect his 
business interests. Bird wrote: "It would seem that we have so outraged 
NASNA that we are now threatened by you. I am not sure of the legality - 
or otherwise - of your threats (to protest the Big Issue), but I shall
certainly be taking legal advice as to whether you are within the law to make
such threats."

Uh oh! Big Lawyers! Big Trouble! Big Legal Bills! Big Business As Usual!  
The fight between the Big Issue and its small opponent is hardly a fair 
one. It is an unseemly spectacle to have such a large, well-funded 
company running roughshod over a homeless woman who puts out a 
grass-roots newspaper with next to no funding, no advertising, and no 
corporate deep pockets to draw on. 

The Big Issue, on the other hand, is a multi-million-dollar corporation 
founded and
funded by the Body Shop in London in 1991. This is not the first time the 
Big Issue has tried to seize the market in a  U.S. city. It made similar 
unsettling moves in San Francisco in 1994 and New York in 1997. Paul 
Boden, director of the S.F. Coalition on Homelessness, told the London 
paper in no uncertain terms that he would consider any attempt to set up 
a Big Issue clone in the Bay Area an unacceptable attack on the
Coalition's Street Sheet.

In New York, the Big Issue was planning on driving the Street News out of 
business, an especially cold-blooded proposition considering that Bird 
acknowledges getting the idea for his paper from the New York street 
paper. NASNA Chair Tim Harris attended the General Assembly of the 
International Network of Street Papers in London in 1996. In an article 
about the conference Harris reported the thinking behind the Big Issue's 
craving to grab the Big Apple.

"Bird claimed that New York's Street News, which has inspired the Big 
Issue and
numerous other papers since it began in 1989, is on the verge of complete 
failure because the paper is 'unreadable.' The New York paper has, in 
recent years, focused editorially on poverty issues, but has been racked 
by internal difficulties. While no formal announcement was made, several 
lower-level Big Issue staff confirmed rumors that The Big Issue plans to 
begin a competing paper in New York, probably before the summer of 1997."

To my ears, this strategy sounds similar to a vulture carefully keeping a 
death watch on the weakest animal in the herd, but in the world of 
venture capitalism such behavior is all too often the norm.

Gordon Roddick, chairman of the Body Shop and co-founder of the Big 
Issue, reportedly held talks with Bird about funding a competing paper in 
New York in October, 1997, with moves into Los Angeles and San Francisco 
to follow. The New York attempt was thwarted, but the move into Los 
Angeles, alas, proceeded. Because of these repellent machinations, I 
personally will never again buy anything from the Body Shop. I join 
Street Sheet Editor Paul Boden's call for people to refuse on principle 
to purchase the Big Issue. The paper and its corporate backer must be 
held accountable for this Machiavellian marketing strategy.

The Big Issue identified the largest market where they perceived some 
weakness in an existing street paper, and went after it in an 
ill-disguised takeover bid. New York City was the largest market with a 
seemingly weak paper. But the prediction of the impending demise of the 
New York Street News was premature. The Big Issue ran headlong into the 
steadfast fighting spirit of Street News Editor Indio Washington.

The result? Street News is still going strong, so Bird took the traveling 
colonizing roadshow to the West Coast, where Los Angeles beckoned with 
the second largest media market in the country, and only a tiny street 
paper edited colonizing roadshow to the West Coast, where Los Angeles 
beckoned with the second largest media market in the country, and only a 
tiny street paper edited by Jennafer Waggoner in the way. A push-over. 

But Waggoner is a dedicated activist who stands up for the human rights 
of homeless people, and has been arrested for her principled acts of 
civil disobedience, most recently for occupying the vacant Flamingo 
Motel. Her paper,  Making Change, is born out of the struggles of 
homeless people in Santa Monica and Los Angeles. The Big Issue is born 
out of a London-based corporation's grandiose ambitions to colonize 
ever-new territories to further the expansionist drive of a paper "empire."

Waggoner's paper, and her entire activist life, is based on advancing the 
human rights of homeless people and conducting the kind of hard-hitting 
reporting on justice issues practiced by most North American homeless 
advocacy papers. The Big Issue, on the other hand, is a paper that, as 
Bird himself wrote in a letter to NASNA on January 9, has "an editorial 
balance of 20% social matters and 80% general interest." This means that 
by his own estimate, the Big Issue consists disproportionately of 
entertainment fluff, rock star bios and celebrity coverage.

Add in all the column inches devoted to advertising, and a true picture 
emerges of where the Big Issue's heart is - and isn't.  They concocted 
their "editorial balance" as shrewdly as they crafted their move into Los 
Angeles. Infotainment sells, and bland editorial content doesn't offend 
advertisers or challenge the public with too much hard-hitting reporting 
about "difficult" subjects.

USA Today and People Magazine also feature entertainment journalism and 
eschew
outspoken political advocacy, but they do not promote themselves as a 
street newspaper, nor do they compete with grass-roots homeless papers, 
nor try to knock them out of business.

In his article about the INSP conference, Harris reported that Bird said 
he was
committed to spreading his paper's model of "general interest entertainment
journalism and corporate support," and that the major function of street
newspapers is to be a "business."  "The Big Issue is not a homeless 
paper," Bird said. "It never has and never will be. It is a paper sold by 
homeless people. While we have a ghetto in the paper for the homeless 
called Streetlights, we want to break people out of that."

It is insufferably demeaning for Bird to dismiss the one part of his pape 
where homeless people express themselves as a "ghetto" that they must 
break out of - presumably so they can write about more commercial 
subjects such as Madonna, Oasis, or people addicted to playing the 
Lottery. There is an urgent need for the kind of passionate, politically 
committed journalism practiced by Making Change and many North American 
street papers.
 
The real threat posed by the Big Issue is that with its big budget and 
big corporate backing, it will engulf and devour smaller papers and 
replace their crusading reporting with its dumbed-down entertainment 
journalism (and its 20% reporting on what Bird blandly calls "social 
matters").  The most important goal of homeless newspapers is not to 
attract advertising revenue but to fearlessly tell the truth about the 
injustices suffered by poor people and to build a movement to safeguard 
basic human rights. 

A street paper with a conscience must join in solidarity struggles with 
the homeless community and promote activist campaigns to win decent 
housing, jobs, welfare
entitlements, health care and disability rights.  In his letter to NASNA 
on January 9, Bird wrote: "Many of your members will no doubt see The Big 
Issue as a piece of fluff, too slick by half. I would be very surprised 
if it were different. Their vision of a street paper is totall opposite 
to that of The Big Issue as it is represented in its UK incarnation."  "A 
piece of fluff, too slick by half." Finally we can agree on something. 




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