SchNEWS
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SchNEWS is a weekly anarchist publication published in Brighton, England as a double sided A4 newspaper and an online edition. It was first published on November 16, 1994 in order to lament the loss of a squatted disused courthouse in Brighton and the attempt to turn it into a community centre.
SchNEWS describes itself as "information for action" and was once dubbed "the national newsletter of the protest movement" by mainstream British newspaper The Guardian.[1]
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[edit] History
SchNEWS began life in 1994. It was originally created by two activists involved in the squatting of a courthouse which was part of a Brighton based campaign against the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 called Justice?. The original working name for SchNEWS was 'The SchNEWSPAPER' which was the form of the dummy-run version that featured the first headline 'Man sits down in park'. The first true version of SchNEWS was the pilot issue cobbled together in Luther Street, Brighton, which was one-sided A4 and had a very small print run with the headline 'Big Brother CCTV installed in Brighton'. It was never intended to become the run-away success that it has, rather it was meant to act as a collective memory for the Brighton-based groups formed under the Justice? banner (a kind of meeting minutes for activists).
It went on to cover the protests against the building of the M11 motorway link road in London, the anti-Newbury Bypass protests in Berkshire and the actions of Reclaim the Streets. It has also reported on labour issues such as the Liverpool Dockers' Strike of 1995-1997, fights against the privatisation of public services, racism, climate change and genetic engineering. Some of those involved were also part of the Simon Jones Memorial Campaign which SchNEWS championed. Later the focus turned to more international issues such as neo-liberalism and more recently the anti-war movement. One of the activists who founded SchNEWS later went on to work as news editor for the Big Issue and is now an English-language correspondent for Al Jazeera.
Initially its focus was to be the newsletter for the direct action movement in Britain in the mid 1990s, but by 2000 the internet had brought a new, more international readership, and the content broadened accordingly.
[edit] SchNEWS today
Exact weekly readership figures are unknown. The paper generally prints around 2,000 copies, though more are printed for big festivals and demonstrations. Of these it is claimed that 650 are posted out to subscribers, bookshops and prisoners. There are also over 11,000 email subscribers and their website receives around 70,000 visits a month. Further distribution takes place in the form of encouragement for readers to photocopy and distribute the newspaper by every available means.
SchNEWS is a non-commercial enterprise and carries no advertising, it is written and edited by a small group of volunteers. It relies on the revenue it brings in from subscriptions, benefit gigs and donations. Its office space was for several years donated by music group The Levellers (who now charge them commercial-rate rent), and the internet space is donated by a local non-profit organisation.
SchNEWS aims to collect its stories "directly from those involved" and claims that this exclusivity sometimes results in its stories being picked up by major international news services[citation needed].
SchNEWS is published in to the public domain and is copyleft.
While the free weekly news-sheet is the primary output from SchNEWS, the collective also produces free-to-download short films - SchMOVIES, as well as annual books, performs live news-based satirical shows, as well as screening films and holding stalls. The website, from which the majority of readers now read SchNEWS, has become a large archive containing all back issues, extensive contacts and protest event listings, as well as being a repository for films and satirical graphics.
[edit] Criticisms
SchNEWS has been criticised by others within activist and political movements for what is perceived as sectarianism. An example of this sectarianism is the newspaper's coverage of events organised by groups including the Stop the War Coalition, which the subject organisation believes to be negative (or unreasonably low) coverage. The publishers claim that it is not sectarian, but would rather be part of a network of autonomous groups – such as those who came together for the 2005 G8 Summit in Scotland – than umbrella groups linked to political parties. [citation needed]
They have also been criticised [2] for promoting [3] [4]the Anarchist Heretics Fair, an event organised by National Anarchists.
[edit] References
- ^ Bellos, Alex (Aug. 8, 1996). "Action marks move beyond 'single issue' campaigning". The Guardian (London, UK), p.5
- ^ The Stewart Home Society
- ^ SchNEWS issue 242, 17th December 1999
- ^ SchNEWS issue 254, 7th April 2000
