Street News

{{Short description|Street newspaper in New York city, now shut down}}

Street News was a street newspaper sold by homeless individuals in New York City. It was founded in 1989 by Hutchinson Persons and Wendy Oxenhorn, marking the beginning of the American street newspaper movement. The publication provided a means of self-sufficiency for many homeless and unemployed individuals in the city. The newspaper was initially sold for $1, with 25 cents allocated to cover operational costs and 75 cents retained as profit by the vendors.

History

Street News began publication in October 1989, founded by its editor-in-chief, rock musician Hutchinson Persons, who was also the founder of Street Aid, along with Wendy Oxenhorn (then Koltun).{{cite web|url=http://www.rrj.ca/issue/2002/summer/373/ |year=2002 |accessdate=12 February 2009 |last=Brown |first=Ann M. |title=Small Papers, Big Issues |work=Ryerson Review of Journalism |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20070911030448/http://www.rrj.ca/issue/2002/summer/373/ |archivedate=September 11, 2007 }}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 ({{cite web | url=http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/ead/htmldocs/RMA03161.html | title=Guide to the Housing and Feeding the Homeless Program, 1981-2000 | publisher=Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library | year=2005 | accessdate=25 February 2009}}). The newspaper was funded through contributions from individuals and corporations, including Cushman & Wakefield, as well as revenue generated from advertising sales. Lance Primis, then-president of The New York Times, joined the organization's board of advisors and provided significant support.

= Launching =

Street News was launched with advertisements on subways and buses donated by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The homeless salesforce promoted Street News shortly after panhandling was declared illegal on the subways; however, vendors were permitted to sell the newspaper in areas surrounding metro train stations. Lee Stringer, a former homeless man and crack addict, was the newspaper's first vendor before becoming an editor and columnist.Stringer, Lee, [https://books.google.com/books?id=uX2Ol9BnT_gC Grand Central Winter: Stories from the Street], 1st ed., New York : Seven Stories Press, 1998. {{ISBN|1-888363-57-6}}. Cf. Chapter 6, "West Forty-sixth Street, Winter 1989" which is about his experiences with Street News. "We all had money to burn. Street News was sweet news. We bought the papers for a quarter each, sold them for seventy five cents. Three bucks for every dollar invested. The papers flew out of our hands, for all over the city the streets were filled with homelessness and compassion. Even a mindless schnook can take home sixty dollars a day. For those of us with demons to feed, the easy money rendered thoughts of larceny obsolete, and for those who only suffered from cruel circumstance, it was a chance once again to dare to flirt with dreams." He is now a writer and works to inspire young people to avoid crime.{{cite news|url=http://www.larchmontgazette.com/2006/articles/20060216stringer.html|title=Mamk's Lee Stringer Gives "Internal View" of a Difficult Life|last=Silberstein|first=Judy|date=2006-02-16|work=Larchmont Gazette|accessdate=2009-03-13}}

= Growing business =

Street News gained widespread media attention following the release of its first article, written by Sam Roberts for The New York Times. Sales quickly grew from an initial 50,000 copies to over one million copies sold within the first four months of publication. Celebrities such as Paul Newman, Liza Minnelli, and the Beach Boys contributed opinion pieces. The newspaper was sold for 75 cents, with vendors receiving 45 cents per copy (plus the first 10 copies free).{{cite book|last=Harper|first=Phillip Brian|title=Private Affairs: Critical Ventures in the Culture of Social Relations|publisher=NYU Press|year=1999|pages=105|isbn=0-8147-3594-0|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5n1A879-MJIC&pg=PA105|accessdate=2009-03-11}}

= Problems =

Co-founder Wendy Oxenhorn left Street News after its first year, citing "philosophical differences on how to run the organization," as reported in a New York Times article. The initial media and public excitement about the paper eventually waned, and the publication faced financial difficulties in the early 1990s.{{cite book|last=Howley|first=Kevin|title=Community Media: People, Places, and Communication Technologies|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2005|pages=65–66|isbn=0-521-79228-2|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MslR_FE5SI4C&pg=PA65|accessdate=2009-03-11}} Some staff members left to start the short-lived Crossroads Magazine.{{cite news|url=http://www.neoch.org/grapevinearticles/37/name_like_stringer.htm|title=With a Name Like Stringer, He was Born to Write...|last=Green|first=Norma|date=August–September 1999|work=The Homeless Grapevine, Issue #37|publisher=Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless|accessdate=2009-03-20}} In 1991, New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority implemented a policy prohibiting the hawking of newspapers on the subways, leading to the arrest of vendors while working in their prime selling locations. This contributed to Street News's ongoing challenges.

After Hutchinson Persons left Street News, its printer, Sam Chen of Expedi Printing, became the new owner. Chen attempted to turn a profit from the publication, but financial problems persisted into the mid-1990s, exacerbated by changing public attitudes toward the homeless, low content, and efforts by the city to displace homeless individuals.{{cite book|last=Swithinbank|first=Tessa|title=Coming Up from the Streets: The Story of The Big Issue|publisher=Earthscan|year=2001|pages=21–33|isbn=1-85383-544-7|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ha1dO1WD88AC&pg=PA21|accessdate=2009-03-11}}

By the mid-1990s, Street News' sales had dropped significantly,{{Cite news | url=https://www.nytimes.com/1994/12/21/nyregion/street-news-sold-by-poor-falls-on-hard-times-itself.html | title=Street News, Sold by Poor, Falls on Hard Times Itself | newspaper=The New York Times | date=21 December 1994 | last1=Barron | first1=James }} and some predicted that the newspaper would cease publication. Janet Wickenhaver became its editor and associate publisher, revamping the struggling business by shifting the focus from celebrity content to more coverage of social issues. While the paper survived and revitalized, it never regained the circulation levels of its early months.{{Citation needed|date=March 2009}} {{As of|2002}}, the editor was John Levi "Indio" Washington Jr. Street News prints 3,000 copies of six issues per year, sold by 15 vendors who receive 75 cents from the $1.25 sale price.{{cite news|url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A02E0D81E3BF93BA35751C1A9649C8B63|title=Following Up|last=Fried|first=Joseph P.|date=2002-12-08|work=The New York Times|pages=section 1 page 57 of the New York edition|accessdate=2009-03-13}}{{cite news|url=http://www.time.com/time/europe/magazine/2003/0210/homeless/paper.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20041209024325/http://www.time.com/time/europe/magazine/2003/0210/homeless/paper.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=December 9, 2004|title=The News from the Street|last=Rosenbaum|first=Andrew|date=2003-02-10|work=Time Magazine|accessdate=2009-03-13}}

= Cancellation =

Street News has since ceased publication. As of now, it is no longer an active publication, and New York City has no official street newspaper.

Legacy

The creation of Street News quickly inspired the founding of many other street newspapers, including Chicago's StreetWise,{{cite book | last=Green | first=Norma Fay | title=Print Culture in a Diverse America | year=1998 | others=eds. James Philip Danky, Wayne A. Wiegand | publisher=University of Illinois Press | isbn=0-252-06699-5 | chapter=Chicago's StreetWise at the Crossroads: A Case Study of a Newspaper to Empower the Homeless in the 1990s | chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Vqtgo0Zi0jEC&pg=PA34|accessdate=2009-03-11 | pages=34–49}} Boston's Spare Change News, and the UK's The Big Issue.{{cite web | title=The Big Issue History | url=http://www.bigissue.com/History_34.php | accessdate=13 January 2009 | publisher=The Big Issue | url-status=dead | archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20090301141303/http://www.bigissue.com/History_34.php | archivedate=1 March 2009 }} The publication has been called a "pioneer" of the street paper movement.{{cite web | url=http://www.nyaorganisationer.soch.lu.se/SituationSthlm.html | accessdate=12 February 2009 | last=Magnusson | first=Jan A | title=The transnational street paper movement | work=Situation Sthlm | url-status=dead | archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20060629073232/http://www.nyaorganisationer.soch.lu.se/SituationSthlm.html | archivedate=29 June 2006 }} Both Street News and The Big Issue have become prototypes for street newspapers worldwide.{{cite book|last1=Heinz|first1=Teresa L.|last2=Levinson|first2=David|title=Encyclopedia of Homelessness|publisher=SAGE|year=2004|edition=illustrated|pages=539|isbn=0-7619-2751-4|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=q-PgHH8TJi8C&pg=RA1-PA539|accessdate=2009-02-12}}