The Times: The Big Issue's struggle to survive
The Big Issue has more than 1.1 million readers and has given thousands of homeless people the chance to earn money legitimately. But now, after a disastrous launch in America, staff cutbacks and talk of a 'financial crisis', the magazine faces an uncertain future. David Rowan investigates
The Big Issue, according to its cover, stands for all that is "Coming up from the streets". On the streets around Euston station last night, the talk among vendors was of the magazine's own uncertain future, amid redundancies, editorial cutbacks and the virtual closure of the London office.
"It's totally out of order," says John, who has sold the magazine here for two-and-a-half years, and now worries about what lies ahead. "I sell 40 copies a day, and people buy it to read. These cutbacks will make a real difference to the quality, and I know who's to blame."
John's anger, and that of other vendors in the area, is directed towards John Bird - The Big Issue's founder and editor-in-chief, who this week confirmed that six out of 13 journalists, including the editor, are taking redundancy (albeit voluntarily) in response to "a changing commercial marketplace". The magazine will now be produced from Manchester, with the main London edition losing its distinct editorial voice -all, Bird insists, to save money in a deep advertising crisis.
"Who's he kidding?" sneers vendor John, waving copies of the £1.20 magazine, of which he keeps 70p. "It's John Bird that owns it, it's him that's getting rid of the staff. It's all 'I','I', 'I' with him. If you ask me, he doesn't give a f***."
Bird, a charismatic if domineering figure, is used to defending The Big Issue, which since its launch 11 years ago has faced frequent attacks from hostile town councillors or disbelieving tabloid pundits. This time, though, the magazine's supporters say that its very survival is at stake.
"If it does move editorial to Manchester, that will be disastrous," says Andrew Jaspan, its former publisher and managing director who now edits the Sunday Herald. "The strength of The Big Issue is that it isn't a uniform, single issue publication, but is based round regional editions, with each speaking to its area. I'd be concerned if these reports are true: it would be a risky approach and I don't know how it would impact on sales."
In London, staff have let it be known that they are "devastated" by the news. "Whatever John says, he's closed the London issue," one insider says. "By getting rid of the editor and keeping just a couple of journalists here, he's neutered it. It's the end of The Big Issue as we know it, and it will become just a worthy magazine that social workers will read."
This "worthiness" recently claimed the editorship of Nicola Barry, who resigned from the Scottish edition after colleagues blocked her plans to make the magazine more lively. They were, she said, "the most difficult eight months of my life".
Of greater concern to John Bird is the suggestion that the "financial crisis" is linked to a disastrous attempt to launch a Los Angeles version of the magazine, whose first issue alone, a former employee suggests, may have cost as much as £250,000. "It's a distortion to suggest that we've run aground in the US and therefore cut staff in the UK," says Bird. "We haven't spent any money in the US for 18 months, and at all times we've protected the core business."
The truth is more mundane, he says. "The Big Issue, like most publications, lives and falls by the marketplace, so over the past year we have been looking for economies. We haven't replaced people and have focused on the costs. If we have a smaller editorial workforce, we can jointly commission articles with other Big Issues and share costs."
He dismisses as "crap" reports that the magazine is in financial trouble. "Six out of 13 editorial staff have taken the opportunity to take voluntary redundancy because of the changing market. None had been here for less than three years. We're not making the editor, Matthew Collin, redundant: after five years here, he wanted to leave. All the redundancies so far are voluntary; there are two non-editorial positions we do not feel we need to carry in the present circumstances. This is not a crisis."
He reinforced his message in 17 interviews on Wednesday, prompted by a newspaper report of a cash crisis. "I kept hearing 'So, The Big Issue is closing'," he says. "I replied 'You weren't around in 1992, when we spent more than we earned; or in 1995-96, when we were nearly driven off the street by the Government. We've survived crises when people have accused The Big Issue of having rapists in our ranks, and when one vendor killed another.
"We've even survived the deification of The Big Issue in the press. The truth is that, after ten years, it needed resuscitation. You have to go back to first principles, and make it an academy of new writers."
A former senior journalist on the magazine offers a different interpretation of Bird's strategy: "This is his pogrom, a chance to clear out everyone that he's wanted to lose for a while. It will be a backbreaking blow for it as a quality magazine. The consequence of a move to Manchester will be to make The Big Issue totally a 'pity purchase'; people will buy it because they feel they ought to, rather than because they want to read it."
Bird dismisses fears that editorial quality will suffer. "That's difficult to prove," he says. "How many people do I meet now who say they love The Big Issue, buy it, but don't read it? An astute editorial team can actually make more out of less. What we have to do is bring in younger writers. I'm convinced that it can work."
In its time, the magazine can claim some remarkable achievements. It now has more than 1.1 million readers in the UK, with 250,000 sales a week. The Big Issue has given thousands of homeless people an opportunity to earn money legitimately, which, the company says, "proves that business can do social good". Last year its charitable foundation helped 130 people to be rehoused, 58 to find jobs and 198 to obtain treatment for drug or other dependency.
The magazine was launched in September 1991, after Gordon Roddick returned from New York excited about Street News, a newspaper he had seen homeless people selling. With the help of the Body Shop, he recruited Bird to launch a monthly London version, but with a key difference: the editorial was to be written largely by professional journalists, rather than street people.
The timing was perfect: as recession deepened, The Big Issue could claim to be doing something constructive to help the most vulnerable. By 1993, it had gone weekly, and sister titles were launched in Manchester, Glasgow and Cardiff, followed by editions in the Midlands and the South West. But Britain was too small for Bird's ambition: Sydney, Cape Town and Los Angeles started their own Big Issues, which run independently but retain links with London.
Editors have always sought to boost the magazine's influence through strong journalism. When George Michael broke his silence after his arrest in California, he chose to do so in The Big Issue, as did the Stone Roses when they announced their comeback. Most recently, it was The Big Issue that interviewed Commander Brian Paddick, the former head of Lambeth police, and tipped off Fleet Street about his views on anarchy. Former journalists have gone on to senior positions at The Guardian, The Mail on Sunday, The Express and The Daily Telegraph.
"The idea was not to launch the careers of lots of journalists," says Jaspan, "but as a byproduct it did, as we sought to hire the best people."
But former staff describe Bird's own role as often less than helpful. "It's founder's syndrome," explains one. "He set it up and couldn't let go, and really resented not being a good enough editor to run the magazine. As a result, he made his editors' lives absolute hell."
Another says: "John could be a complete nightmare -he would walk in ten minutes before press time and demand that the cover be changed. He can also be a bit of a bully, though he is immensely charismatic. He preferred us to be in a state of crisis, as he thought we'd be more cutting edge." A former senior journalist adds: "A lot of dictators know how to devolve to other people; John just can't."
Bird remains widely liked by staff and respected for his energy and ability to get things done. "The duty of anyone who has worked for The Big Issue is to be extremely supportive of it, and I hugely admire a lot of what John has done," says Jaspan. "As an organisation without a proprietor, the magazine gave you the freedom to follow your journalistic nose."
Another former employee says: "He's fantastic at opening all kinds of doors. He could address 500 angry vendors. There was John who would say that he had been a petty criminal, did time at the equivalent of Borstal, he'd roughed it. When he started talking to them he had enormous sway."
He is also admired for funding the magazine through what was at the time seen as a dangerous venture into property speculation. In the mid-1990s he bought a £1.4 million warehouse in Clerkenwell, which he sold for £4 million; he then invested £1.75 million of the proceeds in a King's Cross building that he sold for £3 million.
His big error of judgment, however, seems to have been his failed attempt, in 1998, to enter the American market. "John was restless and wanted something new to do," says a former employee. "The Roddicks had a house in Los Angeles, as did Lynn Franks (the PR guru) and the luvvies were keen for John to go there and work his magic. He went to parties where Hollywood people said they would support him, and he took his eyes off the ball."
Bird, charm to the fore as ever, has a robust defence. "Stars? I met Kim Basinger once and didn't recognise her," he says. "I went to one Hollywood party, for the Baftas, and only met a guy who had a part in The Full Monty. It was probably the loneliest experience of my life and the nearest I ever came to seeing a therapist. I never stayed at the Roddicks' house for more than one night, on three or four occasions -I just didn't have the time.
"If I did cock up in America, why is it that a number of the businesses we're working on have come out of it?"
What he gained, he says, is a faith in social business, such as the ethical venture-capital fund he is launching later this year. "Los Angeles was a speculation that didn't bring immediate results -we're still in the middle of an audit. But whether or not it works financially, it's still the sort of business we should go into. And any money we spent was protected from our core business."
Next, he says, he would like to start a political party designed to bring about a renaissance of community life. "It will be called the Street Party, and will be about re-engaging our communal ownership and making people take responsibility. I want to make people feel good about the roads they walk down."
But what of his core project, The Big Issue? Is it still a success?
"The jury's still out, to be honest. We need a year-long social audit on the impact of our work on the Exchequer -how much we have saved the Government. I met a guy a few years ago who had left the Army in 1967. Until 1992, he had never been out of prison for more than six months. Then he began selling The Big Issue. Now the average price of having someone in prison is £30,000 to £40,000 so there was an immediate saving of £160,000 in the case of one person.
"I measure our success on how many people we have stopped going to prison or having a premature appointment at the mortuary, how many people we have kept out of mental institutions or got out of loneliness, fecklessness, drink and drugs."
INSIDE THIS WEEK'S BIG ISSUE
Cover story: Interview with Badly Drawn Boy: "He is by some distance the scruffiest person in the bar of the Leicester Square Hampshire Hotel."
"Hunting the hunters": An anti-hunt activist's 20-year campaign to infiltrate the enemy. "The right clothes, right badges, right car stickers, right accent all convince the hunt that the newcomer is one of their kind."
Political column: By Chris McLaughlin in Westminster. "Racism in the Tory party is like the proverbial earthworm. Cut off its head and the body continues to live."
Street Lights: Contributions from the homeless."Boris was a pigeon married to Doris. They lived in a brown cardboard box."
(The Times, May 17, 2002)
The Big Issue, according to its cover, stands for all that is "Coming up from the streets". On the streets around Euston station last night, the talk among vendors was of the magazine's own uncertain future, amid redundancies, editorial cutbacks and the virtual closure of the London office.
"It's totally out of order," says John, who has sold the magazine here for two-and-a-half years, and now worries about what lies ahead. "I sell 40 copies a day, and people buy it to read. These cutbacks will make a real difference to the quality, and I know who's to blame."
John's anger, and that of other vendors in the area, is directed towards John Bird - The Big Issue's founder and editor-in-chief, who this week confirmed that six out of 13 journalists, including the editor, are taking redundancy (albeit voluntarily) in response to "a changing commercial marketplace". The magazine will now be produced from Manchester, with the main London edition losing its distinct editorial voice -all, Bird insists, to save money in a deep advertising crisis.
"Who's he kidding?" sneers vendor John, waving copies of the £1.20 magazine, of which he keeps 70p. "It's John Bird that owns it, it's him that's getting rid of the staff. It's all 'I','I', 'I' with him. If you ask me, he doesn't give a f***."
Bird, a charismatic if domineering figure, is used to defending The Big Issue, which since its launch 11 years ago has faced frequent attacks from hostile town councillors or disbelieving tabloid pundits. This time, though, the magazine's supporters say that its very survival is at stake.
"If it does move editorial to Manchester, that will be disastrous," says Andrew Jaspan, its former publisher and managing director who now edits the Sunday Herald. "The strength of The Big Issue is that it isn't a uniform, single issue publication, but is based round regional editions, with each speaking to its area. I'd be concerned if these reports are true: it would be a risky approach and I don't know how it would impact on sales."
In London, staff have let it be known that they are "devastated" by the news. "Whatever John says, he's closed the London issue," one insider says. "By getting rid of the editor and keeping just a couple of journalists here, he's neutered it. It's the end of The Big Issue as we know it, and it will become just a worthy magazine that social workers will read."
This "worthiness" recently claimed the editorship of Nicola Barry, who resigned from the Scottish edition after colleagues blocked her plans to make the magazine more lively. They were, she said, "the most difficult eight months of my life".
Of greater concern to John Bird is the suggestion that the "financial crisis" is linked to a disastrous attempt to launch a Los Angeles version of the magazine, whose first issue alone, a former employee suggests, may have cost as much as £250,000. "It's a distortion to suggest that we've run aground in the US and therefore cut staff in the UK," says Bird. "We haven't spent any money in the US for 18 months, and at all times we've protected the core business."
The truth is more mundane, he says. "The Big Issue, like most publications, lives and falls by the marketplace, so over the past year we have been looking for economies. We haven't replaced people and have focused on the costs. If we have a smaller editorial workforce, we can jointly commission articles with other Big Issues and share costs."
He dismisses as "crap" reports that the magazine is in financial trouble. "Six out of 13 editorial staff have taken the opportunity to take voluntary redundancy because of the changing market. None had been here for less than three years. We're not making the editor, Matthew Collin, redundant: after five years here, he wanted to leave. All the redundancies so far are voluntary; there are two non-editorial positions we do not feel we need to carry in the present circumstances. This is not a crisis."
He reinforced his message in 17 interviews on Wednesday, prompted by a newspaper report of a cash crisis. "I kept hearing 'So, The Big Issue is closing'," he says. "I replied 'You weren't around in 1992, when we spent more than we earned; or in 1995-96, when we were nearly driven off the street by the Government. We've survived crises when people have accused The Big Issue of having rapists in our ranks, and when one vendor killed another.
"We've even survived the deification of The Big Issue in the press. The truth is that, after ten years, it needed resuscitation. You have to go back to first principles, and make it an academy of new writers."
A former senior journalist on the magazine offers a different interpretation of Bird's strategy: "This is his pogrom, a chance to clear out everyone that he's wanted to lose for a while. It will be a backbreaking blow for it as a quality magazine. The consequence of a move to Manchester will be to make The Big Issue totally a 'pity purchase'; people will buy it because they feel they ought to, rather than because they want to read it."
Bird dismisses fears that editorial quality will suffer. "That's difficult to prove," he says. "How many people do I meet now who say they love The Big Issue, buy it, but don't read it? An astute editorial team can actually make more out of less. What we have to do is bring in younger writers. I'm convinced that it can work."
In its time, the magazine can claim some remarkable achievements. It now has more than 1.1 million readers in the UK, with 250,000 sales a week. The Big Issue has given thousands of homeless people an opportunity to earn money legitimately, which, the company says, "proves that business can do social good". Last year its charitable foundation helped 130 people to be rehoused, 58 to find jobs and 198 to obtain treatment for drug or other dependency.
The magazine was launched in September 1991, after Gordon Roddick returned from New York excited about Street News, a newspaper he had seen homeless people selling. With the help of the Body Shop, he recruited Bird to launch a monthly London version, but with a key difference: the editorial was to be written largely by professional journalists, rather than street people.
The timing was perfect: as recession deepened, The Big Issue could claim to be doing something constructive to help the most vulnerable. By 1993, it had gone weekly, and sister titles were launched in Manchester, Glasgow and Cardiff, followed by editions in the Midlands and the South West. But Britain was too small for Bird's ambition: Sydney, Cape Town and Los Angeles started their own Big Issues, which run independently but retain links with London.
Editors have always sought to boost the magazine's influence through strong journalism. When George Michael broke his silence after his arrest in California, he chose to do so in The Big Issue, as did the Stone Roses when they announced their comeback. Most recently, it was The Big Issue that interviewed Commander Brian Paddick, the former head of Lambeth police, and tipped off Fleet Street about his views on anarchy. Former journalists have gone on to senior positions at The Guardian, The Mail on Sunday, The Express and The Daily Telegraph.
"The idea was not to launch the careers of lots of journalists," says Jaspan, "but as a byproduct it did, as we sought to hire the best people."
But former staff describe Bird's own role as often less than helpful. "It's founder's syndrome," explains one. "He set it up and couldn't let go, and really resented not being a good enough editor to run the magazine. As a result, he made his editors' lives absolute hell."
Another says: "John could be a complete nightmare -he would walk in ten minutes before press time and demand that the cover be changed. He can also be a bit of a bully, though he is immensely charismatic. He preferred us to be in a state of crisis, as he thought we'd be more cutting edge." A former senior journalist adds: "A lot of dictators know how to devolve to other people; John just can't."
Bird remains widely liked by staff and respected for his energy and ability to get things done. "The duty of anyone who has worked for The Big Issue is to be extremely supportive of it, and I hugely admire a lot of what John has done," says Jaspan. "As an organisation without a proprietor, the magazine gave you the freedom to follow your journalistic nose."
Another former employee says: "He's fantastic at opening all kinds of doors. He could address 500 angry vendors. There was John who would say that he had been a petty criminal, did time at the equivalent of Borstal, he'd roughed it. When he started talking to them he had enormous sway."
He is also admired for funding the magazine through what was at the time seen as a dangerous venture into property speculation. In the mid-1990s he bought a £1.4 million warehouse in Clerkenwell, which he sold for £4 million; he then invested £1.75 million of the proceeds in a King's Cross building that he sold for £3 million.
His big error of judgment, however, seems to have been his failed attempt, in 1998, to enter the American market. "John was restless and wanted something new to do," says a former employee. "The Roddicks had a house in Los Angeles, as did Lynn Franks (the PR guru) and the luvvies were keen for John to go there and work his magic. He went to parties where Hollywood people said they would support him, and he took his eyes off the ball."
Bird, charm to the fore as ever, has a robust defence. "Stars? I met Kim Basinger once and didn't recognise her," he says. "I went to one Hollywood party, for the Baftas, and only met a guy who had a part in The Full Monty. It was probably the loneliest experience of my life and the nearest I ever came to seeing a therapist. I never stayed at the Roddicks' house for more than one night, on three or four occasions -I just didn't have the time.
"If I did cock up in America, why is it that a number of the businesses we're working on have come out of it?"
What he gained, he says, is a faith in social business, such as the ethical venture-capital fund he is launching later this year. "Los Angeles was a speculation that didn't bring immediate results -we're still in the middle of an audit. But whether or not it works financially, it's still the sort of business we should go into. And any money we spent was protected from our core business."
Next, he says, he would like to start a political party designed to bring about a renaissance of community life. "It will be called the Street Party, and will be about re-engaging our communal ownership and making people take responsibility. I want to make people feel good about the roads they walk down."
But what of his core project, The Big Issue? Is it still a success?
"The jury's still out, to be honest. We need a year-long social audit on the impact of our work on the Exchequer -how much we have saved the Government. I met a guy a few years ago who had left the Army in 1967. Until 1992, he had never been out of prison for more than six months. Then he began selling The Big Issue. Now the average price of having someone in prison is £30,000 to £40,000 so there was an immediate saving of £160,000 in the case of one person.
"I measure our success on how many people we have stopped going to prison or having a premature appointment at the mortuary, how many people we have kept out of mental institutions or got out of loneliness, fecklessness, drink and drugs."
INSIDE THIS WEEK'S BIG ISSUE
Cover story: Interview with Badly Drawn Boy: "He is by some distance the scruffiest person in the bar of the Leicester Square Hampshire Hotel."
"Hunting the hunters": An anti-hunt activist's 20-year campaign to infiltrate the enemy. "The right clothes, right badges, right car stickers, right accent all convince the hunt that the newcomer is one of their kind."
Political column: By Chris McLaughlin in Westminster. "Racism in the Tory party is like the proverbial earthworm. Cut off its head and the body continues to live."
Street Lights: Contributions from the homeless."Boris was a pigeon married to Doris. They lived in a brown cardboard box."
(The Times, May 17, 2002)
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