Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty
Special offer: Receive 12 issues for just £12!
Subscribe today
Opinion

As misinformation thrives, you can trust in Big Issue

Trust in Big Issue as an organisation has always been an essential fuel, writes our editor Paul McNamee

Big Issue vendor Lawrence sells the magazine in Chiswick, London. Image: ©Louise Haywood-Schiefer

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.

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.

Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty
Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty

Do you have a story to tell or opinions to share about this? Get in touch and tell us moreBig Issue exists to give homeless and marginalised people the opportunity to earn an income. To support our work buy a copy of the magazine or get the app from the App Store or Google Play.

Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty

READER-SUPPORTED SINCE 1991

Reader-supported journalism that doesn’t just report problems, it helps solve them.

Recommended for you

View all
Teaching five-year-olds about grief isn't morbid – it's necessary
Rowan Humphries-Massey

Teaching five-year-olds about grief isn't morbid – it's necessary

Working parents can now get 30 hours of free childcare. But do the numbers add up?
Erin Mansell

Working parents can now get 30 hours of free childcare. But do the numbers add up?

Wildfire, cheese, tap dancing and buses: Robin Ince's Edinburgh Fringe 2025
Robin Ince

Wildfire, cheese, tap dancing and buses: Robin Ince's Edinburgh Fringe 2025

Turns out Nigel Farage isn't prime minister. So why does he get so much airtime?
Paul McNamee

Turns out Nigel Farage isn't prime minister. So why does he get so much airtime?

Most Popular

Read All
Renters pay their landlords' buy-to-let mortgages, so they should get a share of the profits
Renters: A mortgage lender's window advertising buy-to-let products
1.

Renters pay their landlords' buy-to-let mortgages, so they should get a share of the profits

Exclusive: Disabled people are 'set up to fail' by the DWP in target-driven disability benefits system, whistleblowers reveal
Pound coins on a piece of paper with disability living allowancve
2.

Exclusive: Disabled people are 'set up to fail' by the DWP in target-driven disability benefits system, whistleblowers reveal

Cost of living payments: Where to get help in 2025 now the scheme is over
next dwp cost of living payment 2023
3.

Cost of living payments: Where to get help in 2025 now the scheme is over

Citroën Ami: the tiny electric vehicle driving change with The Big Issue
4.

Citroën Ami: the tiny electric vehicle driving change with The Big Issue