This article is from Street Sense’s special April Fool’s Edition.
Due to the economic crisis hitting home here at Street Sense, we have decided to stop printing a newspaper and instead have our vendors recite the news. As many traditional newspapers reduce production and cut staff to make ends meet, we feel that this move is more in line with the street-feel of Street Sense. It harkens back to the days of town criers, giving our vendors that much more importance in society.
After much research the board has determined that this will save Street Sense about $20,000 a year and more than 10-fold return in investment for our vendors.
Currently vendors pay 25 cents for each copy of Street Sense that they sell for $1. Come April 14, vendors will pay $1 for a copy of a news article, editorial or poem, and “sell” a recitation of the story to passersby for 50 cents. While the cost upfront is more than one sale, unlike the paper, the story can be recycled dozens of times over. Consequently, we anticipate vendors making at least $20 on the $1 investment of one story.
To help vendors with this new kind of news distribution, Street Sense will hold a series of trainings on how to read the news from CNN’s anchors Nancy Grace and Glen Beck.
However, to prevent vendors from “selling” the same story for weeks on end, each story will be printed in disappearing ink, so that the writing will only last for one day. This way, vendors will have to buy a new story each day. While the use of invisible ink will cost a little extra, the board agreed that it was well worth it to increase the organization’s sales income. Also Street Sense got quite a deal on several cases of invisible ink from recently laid off contractors that used to work with the FBI.
This new type of distribution will also help Street Sense release timelier information. Instead of gathering stories and wasting time laying them out into a pretty format, our editor and volunteers can turn around short news bites in 24 hours on the latest shelter closing, health center crisis or employment scams.
So from now on when you see a vendor in a yellow vest, ask them what the latest news is and give them 50 cents or more for a colorful reading of the latest news on homelessness and poverty.
