Weekly street newspaper Big Issue has made its two top digital editors redundant as part of a restructure of the organisation.
The “difficult but necessary” changes follow the news that editor of almost 20 years Paul McNamee will leave the business at the end of March.
News and digital editor Ryan Butcher, who had been with Big Issue since September 2023, wrote on Linkedin: “Regrettably, I’ll be leaving my role… following a redundancy process. The media industry is facing all manner of challenges and Big Issue is not immune to those.”
He added that since he joined Big Issue it has seen “the highest audience numbers” in its history with “page views up 200% and unique users up 195% in just two years”.
Deputy digital editor Sophia Alexandra Hall posted: “Following changes within the editorial team, I’ll be leaving Big Issue later this month… I led a full social rebrand across all platforms and pushed hard into video, with multiple pieces reaching audiences in the millions.
“My own reporting has ranged from analysing the rise in UK wildfires with climate experts, to investigating the private fostering sector, to holding politicians and commissioners to account from the Houses of Parliament to the Senedd.”
Senior reporter Greg Barradale also announced last week he was leaving Big Issue and going freelance.
A Big Issue spokesperson told Press Gazette: “Like many publishers, Big Issue Group has faced a challenging financial market in recent years. We are taking difficult but necessary steps to reduce costs and reshape parts of the organisation to ensure our long-term stability. This process has been undertaken across the group and isn’t isolated to our editorial team.
“These actions are essential for continuing to deliver our life-changing services for the thousands of vendors who rely on the income brought in by selling the Big Issue every week.”
Big Issue magazine has been sold on UK high streets since 1991 to help its thousands of homeless or at-risk vendors. They buy the magazine from the publisher at a lower price and sell it on for £5 (the price increased from £4 in November). The title has a stated mission of working to end poverty.
As well as the media arm, Big Issue Group includes an impact advisory division that works with corporate clients, an investment arm to support organisations working to end poverty and inequality and a specialist recruitment service to help people back into work.
The spokesperson continued: “Separate to this process, our longstanding editor Paul McNamee announced his departure back in January after an incredible 19-year long tenure in the role. We’re grateful for his exceptional leadership over such a long stint with us, overseeing a time of great change and evolution for both the magazine and the wider Big Issue Group.
“Paul will continue in post until March, and the appointment of our new editor will be announced in due course.”
McNamee said in January his planned departure had “not been an easy decision”, adding: “As Big Issue heads into this 35th anniversary year of celebrations, with plans for new development, growth and approach, this felt like the right time to step aside and allow somebody else to take the helm.”
He also said: “I appreciate the opportunity to choose my time of departure… Publishing is a brutal business and you don’t always have that gift.”
McNamee told Press Gazette in 2024 that the publisher had invested in digital since 2021 so “people see what we’re doing and can respond quite quickly to the activism within the journalism online…
“So perhaps people still think of The Big Issue as a street paper — which we are, of course, and that’s our foundational core — but we have to be seen, I think, much more as a change-making digital proposition.”
In 2024 (the most recent figures available) Big Issue Group said it had 9.5 million unique website visitors, up from 7.9 million in 2023.
It said in its 2024 annual impact report: “In the coming two years, our digital focus will be on developing depth of engagement and not just reach. We want our readers to spend more time on our website and return more frequently. This will help us drive more positive social change.”
Big Issue Media Ltd, a social enterprise that aims to reinvest profit back into what it does, increased revenue by 0.7% in the year to 31 March 2024 to £6.2m, of which two-thirds (£4.1m) came from magazine sales with the second biggest chunk from subscriptions and sponsorship (11%, or £682,915).
But profit before tax swung into a loss, from £410,527 profit to a loss of £225,717. The publisher had 70 employees in that financial year.
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