Prof. Kevin Howley Analyzes Changes in 'Street' Papers

August 9, 2006

August 9, 2006, Greencastle, Ind. - "The shift among street papers nationally toward more ''middle-class' content, at its best, demonstrates how issues of social and economic justice are ... not only or simply a local problem,' says Kevin Howley, associate professor of media studies at DePauw University in Indiana," reports Oregon's Williamette Week. Dr. Howley is quoted in a story that examines a move by Street Roots -- a Portland newspaper that is distributed homeless persons and has been "focused almost exclusively on homelessness and poverty" -- toward covering other news.

Jake Thomas writes, "In its Aug. 1 issue, for example, the 16-page edition included articles about a Brazilian street paper, a National Labor Relations Board ruling on labor laws, a Brookings Institute report on the gap between rich and poor, welfare reform, the death of a Portland AIDS activist, Astoria's economy, and an activist who opposes the School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Ga. ... The changes track with the transformations by many of America's 29 street papers from scraggly, amateurish publications to papers with appeal to a broader readership. Local vendors largely laud the change because it's meant they sell more papers. And selling more of the $1 papers means they get more of their 70-cent cut out of each sale."

Access the complete article at the newspaper's Web site.

Professor Howley, the author of the book, Community Media: People, Places, and Communication Technologies, recently wrote an op-ed on grass-roots efforts to maintain public access television and affordable Internet service in America. Read more in this previous story.

Source: Williamette (Oregon) Week

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