Free Anarchist Newsheets

anarchol
Posts: 224 Joined: 22-09-04 Location: Newport, Wales
Submitted by anarchol on 23 April, 2007 - 15:31.

After reading the Underground thread and some of the things that came up about doing freesheets and the level of response it gets, plus with the schnews media gathering coming up, I got to thinking:

Of the free anarchist publications that curently exist:

How many are printed?

How are they distributed?

Is internet distribution useful?

How it is finaced?

How are articles gathered?

What sort of response is there for each issue?

For Gagged! - South Wales Anarchist Newsletter we print 5,000 copies on a bi-monthly basis (though often this is more like every 10 weeks) which are left in shops, pubs and clubs that are willing to take them, delivered door to door in certain areas, given out at stalls at gigs, community festivals, political events & in the street as well as generally just handed around. Several people outside of the areas where there are active groups take bundles too. Our e-mailing list has over 2,000 subscribers and we also post it around places like myspace.

As several people involved with South Wales Anarchists work in the printing industry we're able to do all the production side of things ourselves and keep costs to a complete minimum, however we still need money for production/postage. Donations we get on stalls and from tins some shops put next to Gagged! help alot, benefit gigs tend to be more stress than they're worth, whip arounds in meetings gather the most cash, wanna do subs in the future.

Most issues have 15+ different peopele writing for it, hassled by the editorial team which is 9 people on email list but between three and five in practise. Editorial sessions cut articles to shreads if need be, but always show the author the edits and makes sure they're happy or the artcle doesn't get printed (only ever had one problem in this). Most people invovled in anarchist activism in south wales have written for Gagged! at some point and we try to make sure new people feel able to submit articles. We usually get more articles submitted than we have space for.

Most issues result in a few emails, usually from either former activists who are pleased such a thing exists or rebellious youth wanting more info. Every now and again new people get involved with local groups/campagins they first heard about in Gagged! For small numbers of anarchists in more out of the way places in south Wales, distribution has given them a focal point for activies.

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JoeBlack2 "Posting a lot less in 2007"
Posts: 1535 Joined: 28-02-05
23 April, 2007 - 15:55

Contents
Public Health not Private Wealth
Water Tax:Northern parties united in collusion,
Spring clean shell out of Erris
Your money or your life?
Thats capitalism - WS96
Anarchism and the WSM
Partnership delivers more work for less pay
Thinking about anarchism: Exploitation
Fianna Fail to Perform Miracle of Full Employment
15 Years After the X-Case Bertie Still Lies About Abortion
Sinn Fein Learn to Love the Police
There’s no such thing as a ‘free’ computer

That's WS96, online at http://www.wsm.ie/story/2290

How many are printed?
6,500

How are they distributed?
About 4500 of these door to door. The rest through street distributions, public transport and protests/events

Is internet distribution useful?
Yes - we normally post relevent articles to indymedia.ie and then our own site before the printed version comes out, this amounts to 10's of thousands additional readers

How it is finaced?
Out of the WSM account which in turn is mostly generated by all members paying a percentage of their income

How are articles gathered?
We have an editorial group which puts together each issue - it gets members and sometimes non members to write articles to a word count

What sort of response is there for each issue?
Our one area of weakness has been not to seek out responses so we have no hard information just anecdotal stuff in relation to talking to people while distributing and organising events in the areas we distribute

oisleep
Posts: 2680 Joined: 20-04-05
23 April, 2007 - 16:01

the design of that does look nice, although the bit down the bottom 'newspaper of anarchists in ireland' sounds a bit childish

october_lost "Not one thread, not one needle"
Posts: 1090 Joined: 26-09-03 Location: Stratford, London
23 April, 2007 - 16:01

JoeBlack2, thanks for your contribution, I want to follow on with a few more questions.

When did you start door to door distrubtion?
What were the motivations?
What are the responses on the door?

What is the contribution of members in terms of finances?

JoeBlack2 "Posting a lot less in 2007"
Posts: 1535 Joined: 28-02-05
23 April, 2007 - 16:44

When did you start door to door distribtion?
From memory around 2001 I think

What were the motivations?
We realised that standing around on the street to sell papers may be traditional but it a massive waste of time as you distribute very little. So the initial motivation was a mechanism for mass distribution and also reaching beyond the left / activist scene. Over time as we grew we have started to also look at it as a way of building in particular neighboorhoods. Now we have branches in the areas where we have done most distribution since 2001

What are the responses on the door?
Everything from people coming out after you to hand it back (Labour Party members seem prone to this) to people talking about the contents and local issues. It really depends more on weather conditions than anything else as warm sunny days are when people chat and are perhaps sitting on their door stop while wet days you don't talk to anyone. People most inclined to talk are often people who have been active themselves in the past, ex members of the Workers Party or Communist Party for instance.

What is the contribution of members in terms of finances?

I think I answered this?

Oisleep - the anarchists in Ireland thing is actually an alternative to the original Irish anarchist paper as a fair percentage of our membership are now migrants into Ireland.

oisleep
Posts: 2680 Joined: 20-04-05
23 April, 2007 - 16:58

nah just meant that it reads a bit clumsy/childlike i thought, not getting at the actual meaning of it itself

Weeler "The wind that shakes Nathan Barley"
Posts: 5737 Joined: 25-09-05 Location: Dublin
23 April, 2007 - 17:14
oisleep wrote:
nah just meant that it reads a bit clumsy/childlike i thought, not getting at the actual meaning of it itself

I actually agree with you. There are better things it could say.

oisleep
Posts: 2680 Joined: 20-04-05
23 April, 2007 - 17:23

like 'over 6 thousand distributed every month' !

catch "unpractical[sic] and blinkered"
Posts: 9883 Joined: 07-02-06 Location: London
23 April, 2007 - 18:23
oisleep wrote:
like 'over 6 thousand distributed every month' !

That's a lot better actually - I bet most people who get it have no idea how many are printed.

Not anarchist, but I used to do door-to-door distro a fair bit with Hackney Independent and found it to be a pretty rewarding thing to do. Sometimes this'd be just putting it through the door, sometimes knocking and giving it by hand if people were in. You know exactly how many you've given out, you can feel the progress of it as you go along, and there's a decent chance people will read it and more likelihood of feedback than a street distro.

georgestapleton "an indistinguishable part of a nationalist front sticking up for Irish independence"
Posts: 1450 Joined: 04-08-05 Location: Dublin, Ireland
24 April, 2007 - 00:19
oisleep wrote:
like 'over 6 thousand distributed every month' !

Although its not actually monthly, about 7/8 come out per year.

Saii "Out-straighted by the Reverend."
Posts: 2819 Joined: 06-11-03 Location: England
24 April, 2007 - 07:34
oisleep+georgestapleton's estimate wrote:
Over 4,000 distributed every month on average!

oisleep
Posts: 2680 Joined: 20-04-05
24 April, 2007 - 07:51

you'd need a footnote giving the workings, but other than that i think we're on a winner

hold the front page!

madashell "KSW, LOL"
Posts: 2998 Joined: 19-06-06 Location: Merseyside
24 April, 2007 - 10:30
catch wrote:
Not anarchist, but I used to do door-to-door distro a fair bit with Hackney Independent and found it to be a pretty rewarding thing to do. Sometimes this'd be just putting it through the door, sometimes knocking and giving it by hand if people were in. You know exactly how many you've given out, you can feel the progress of it as you go along, and there's a decent chance people will read it and more likelihood of feedback than a street distro.

This is quite interesting, because I've always thought that going door to door would be a lot less effective than street distros. Surely people are just going to chuck it away with the rest of the junk mail? I never read half the crap the local Labour and Green parties put through my door.

JoeBlack2 "Posting a lot less in 2007"
Posts: 1535 Joined: 28-02-05
24 April, 2007 - 10:53
madashell wrote:
This is quite interesting, because I've always thought that going door to door would be a lot less effective than street distros. Surely people are just going to chuck it away with the rest of the junk mail? I never read half the crap the local Labour and Green parties put through my door.

Do you read half the crap your handed on the street though? In particular at demos I find I end up with half a dozen leaflets I put in my pocket and never look at. Incidentally I think this is why high production values are important as your more likely to flip through a glossy colour paper than an black and white obviously photocopied sheet.

I think probably its similar with stuff coming through the door - it needs to look quite different to the rest of the crap as a lot of people probably look at the front and if it looks like a Pizza menu or an election leaflet bin it. I don't read election litreature but I do tend to read or at least flick through the 'newsletters' that Sinn Fein or Finna Fail drop through the door as they contain some actual news amongst the photos of beaming candidate next to Gerry Adams. Incidentally I think thats why we put 'Anarchist' on the cover in a visible way as it probably gets peoples attention, expecially if they think of initially anarchists as crazies.

Apart from potentially being used for neighboorhood organising door to door distro has two major advanatages over street distro
1. Its faster - I can do 150 papers in 40 minutes door to door, apart from demonstrations I'd say I'd be lucky to do 50 in an hour of most street distros as people have a high level of reluctance to take stuff. Rush hour public transport is faster but I have a suspicion that due to crammed buses and trains things may be shoved into a pocket and forgotten about.
2. Potentially instead of one person deciding to read it or not several do. That is incoming post is probably looked through by a couple of people or more in a house before getting binned.

I'm sure there must be market research into the two methods by those who publish commercial ad sheets, might go and do a bit of googling to see what is out there. I certainly think we need to do some door knocking to get some real idea of what sort of recognition there is.

Jack "In it for spite"
Posts: 9902 Joined: 22-09-03 Location: Brighton
24 April, 2007 - 11:02

JB2 - could you give a rough figure in terms of 'man-hours' for a door to door distro of 6000?

Joseph K. "the thinking man's idiot"
Posts: 7671 Joined: 14-03-06 Location: Brighton
24 April, 2007 - 11:15
Joeblack2 wrote:
Incidentally I think thats why we put 'Anarchist' on the cover in a visible way as it probably gets peoples attention, expecially if they think of initially anarchists as crazies.

good point, so long as it's not followed by content that makes you look like crazies wink

Weeler "The wind that shakes Nathan Barley"
Posts: 5737 Joined: 25-09-05 Location: Dublin
24 April, 2007 - 11:18
Joseph K. wrote:
Joeblack2 wrote:
Incidentally I think thats why we put 'Anarchist' on the cover in a visible way as it probably gets peoples attention, expecially if they think of initially anarchists as crazies.

good point, so long as it's not followed by content that makes you look like crazies ;)

I'm laying out the next issue atm and the content is actually class, one of the best reads so far and I'm totally impartial. wink

Steven. "not online much for a while"
Posts: 1516 Joined: 27-06-06 Location: London
24 April, 2007 - 11:23

I did a little bit of HI distro, not sure how useful I think it was. I remember going round doing a survey afterwards and one of the questions was about HI and if people read it, to which some said "yes" but when I asked more they said stuff like "Yes you cover the festivals don't you? Very good" so just wanting to be polite really. I don't know what proportion actually do read them.

Joe:

Quote:
Over time as we grew we have started to also look at it as a way of building in particular neighboorhoods. Now we have branches in the areas where we have done most distribution since 2001

Is this because you have done the most distro in areas where you have the most members already? Or are many of your members people who have joined after having WS shoved through their door? If so I'd be interested to know how many.

JoeBlack2 "Posting a lot less in 2007"
Posts: 1535 Joined: 28-02-05
24 April, 2007 - 11:31
Jack wrote:
JB2 - could you give a rough figure in terms of 'man-hours' for a door to door distro of 6000?

Err 6000/150 = 40 - that sounds about right

JoeBlack2 "Posting a lot less in 2007"
Posts: 1535 Joined: 28-02-05
24 April, 2007 - 11:37
John. wrote:

Is this because you have done the most distro in areas where you have the most members already?

Yes - in general we do them where members live / work. Politically this is also more useful in that you will be recognisible

John. wrote:
Or are many of your members people who have joined after having WS shoved through their door? If so I'd be interested to know how many.

No although there is at least one. I wouldn't see this as a recruitment strategy in particular for a small group. Our membership to date is largely people who became politically active and went looking at organisations rather then people we convinced to become active who then joined. Now that we are moving in Dublin towards neighboorhood locaisation this may change but I suspect its pretty much always going to be the case that people make the decision first and then look around.

october_lost "Not one thread, not one needle"
Posts: 1090 Joined: 26-09-03 Location: Stratford, London
24 April, 2007 - 12:37

Im keen to emulate some of what joeblack as brought with our local, but I think there as to be a good study of resources and how effective the outcome is.

Steven. "not online much for a while"
Posts: 1516 Joined: 27-06-06 Location: London
24 April, 2007 - 13:17
JoeBlack2 wrote:
John. wrote:
Quote:
Over time as we grew we have started to also look at it as a way of building in particular neighboorhoods. Now we have branches in the areas where we have done most distribution since 2001

Is this because you have done the most distro in areas where you have the most members already?

Yes - in general we do them where members live / work. Politically this is also more useful in that you will be recognisible

John. wrote:
Or are many of your members people who have joined after having WS shoved through their door? If so I'd be interested to know how many.

No although there is at least one. I wouldn't see this as a recruitment strategy in particular for a small group.

Right ok, because your initial comment made it look like the distribution helped you build those branches, which I guess maybe it did, but only as a shared activity to work around or something?

Yeah october it'd be good to properly assess the effectiveness of the various different media. It's good hearing feedback from other people, although I suppose it'd be impossible to properly assess. Well maybe if some student or academic or something did a big study of it...

Weeler "The wind that shakes Nathan Barley"
Posts: 5737 Joined: 25-09-05 Location: Dublin
24 April, 2007 - 13:35
John. wrote:
Right ok, because your initial comment made it look like the distribution helped you build those branches, which I guess maybe it did, but only as a shared activity to work around or something?

It's a bit of both, we happen to have members focussed in two central locations (one on the north and one on the south side of the city) but we also have people who joined from those areas because we were basing ourselves there, some were anarchists before and decided to get on board and some (very few) weren't politically involved before.

Battlescarred
Posts: 716 Joined: 27-02-06
24 April, 2007 - 14:29

Lowest monthly print run of Resistance is 3,500 often going up to 5,000 or 6,000 depending on the month and what's happening that month. As well as this there are various Resistance specials (Global warming for demo, a few May Day specials) and our local newsheets in Liverpool, Hereford, Nottingham etc.
Subscriptions to Resistance are growing, both electronically and by ordinary mail and we have never regretted bringing it out as we have made both an impact and increased our contacts through it.
This is reflected in the growth of the AF, the consolidation of groups in Manchester, Liverpool and Surrey and new groups in Sheffield, Preston, Bristol, Hereford, starting to get off the ground.

madashell "KSW, LOL"
Posts: 2998 Joined: 19-06-06 Location: Merseyside
24 April, 2007 - 15:08

On a sidenote, we're not doing Merseyside R! anymore, MAG is producing it's own newsletter, Shout! and we didn't think it was worthwhile having two local anarchist sheets, since we're all in MAG anyway.

georgestapleton "an indistinguishable part of a nationalist front sticking up for Irish independence"
Posts: 1450 Joined: 04-08-05 Location: Dublin, Ireland
24 April, 2007 - 15:34

Thats good. When I was doing a street distro in the Liberties (the area of the city where my branch is based) about a fortnight ago I met a german bloke who was in Dublin for the weekend who said he'd gone to the MAG meetings he seemed sound. Its really good that that group is being set up.

oisleep
Posts: 2680 Joined: 20-04-05
24 April, 2007 - 16:10

what's the thing with putting exclamation marks after titles of narkised magazines?

Saii "Out-straighted by the Reverend."
Posts: 2819 Joined: 06-11-03 Location: England
24 April, 2007 - 16:36

Anarchists do it with added emphasis (also available as a bumper sticker)

IrrationallyAngry
Posts: 321 Joined: 23-06-05
24 April, 2007 - 16:51

That seems surpisingly low, given your recent expansion. 10 people, doing one two hour session a month could get that much out. Have you been thinking of maybe tripling the print run?

catch "unpractical[sic] and blinkered"
Posts: 9883 Joined: 07-02-06 Location: London
24 April, 2007 - 17:20
John. wrote:
I did a little bit of HI distro, not sure how useful I think it was. I remember going round doing a survey afterwards and one of the questions was about HI and if people read it, to which some said "yes" but when I asked more they said stuff like "Yes you cover the festivals don't you? Very good" so just wanting to be polite really. I don't know what proportion actually do read them.

Yeah it's very hard to tell. Overall I think it's got a ot going for it over street distro - mainly that if even 100 out of 6,000 people actually read it properly, they might read it every month/quarter, whereas a street distro is going to be 99.99% different people every time. It's still lots of effort for not much reward though.

georgestapleton "an indistinguishable part of a nationalist front sticking up for Irish independence"
Posts: 1450 Joined: 04-08-05 Location: Dublin, Ireland
24 April, 2007 - 22:38
IrrationallyAngry wrote:
That seems surpisingly low, given your recent expansion. 10 people, doing one two hour session a month could get that much out. Have you been thinking of maybe tripling the print run?

I presume this is directed towards the WSM. No we are not thinking about tripiling our print run although that may not be a bad idea. However we are probably going to increase our print run soon. Personally I'd like it increased substantially but that's an internal debate and there's no point in making it public.

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