Around Christmas, we asked you, our Big Issue readers, what your thoughts were about Big Issue. It’s a fraught venture. By asking the question, we leave you free to tell us things we might not like. You are the most honest of mirrors. Results were interesting and reassuring. One key word kept arising in responses – trust.
You told us, in some numbers, that you trust our reporting to be factual and accurate. Trust in Big Issue as an organisation has always been an essential fuel. If you didn’t trust us to work to end poverty, to give those most in need a hand up, not a hand out, to know that we are not self-serving in this, then we’d be just another company.
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We’re a social enterprise that reinvests profits in order to keep working for those who need us. Big Issue remains the only publication that immediately gives away half of its cover price from the start – the 50/50 split with vendors is foundational. But the trust in our journalism has never felt so timely.
As our founder John Bird said in a recent column: “What we face in 2025 is a hotter, madder, more divisive world.” As the richest, most influential men and publishers in the world run from the very idea of truth and facts, claiming to want to open further free speech, or else to help those left behind, when it’s clear they are simply trying to find new ways to circle their wagons and enrich themselves, organisations that are trusted to go the other way will be at a premium.
Big Issue is not the only one. But we are proud to be here and doing this. And we will continue to report, to challenge authority and those in power, when the need arises. We will campaign for change, and we will celebrate those delivering positive solutions. We will not demonise or marginalise for nasty, cheap gains.
We will continue to analyse and to offer something that can stop the noise. We will do this with what others have identified as our buccaneering spirit. That doesn’t mean fast and loose with facts, rather to deliver with spirit, whether in print, online, in newsletters or, ironically, on the social channels that now feel gamed to boost things that are incorrect. We are a place where truth matters. We value you all staying with us.
