RADIO ARC 101:“NEWSSTANDS, ‘ENDANGERED SPECIES’ LIKE CAFÉS: MONEY LOST AND HOPES FROM STANFORD” by NANDO SILVESTRI SOURCE: https://radioarc.it/edicole-razze-in-estinzione-come-i-bar-soldi-persi-e-speranze-da-stanford/ Newsstands are another repository of humanity and knowledge, in many respects similar to cafés, at least as far as the unfortunate fate that has befallen many of them is concerned. The smell of printed paper, coloured card, variegated covers, surprise packets and cellophane was an olfactory molasses that once intoxicated young and old alike and represented, at the same time, a sought-after destination for daily walks and pauses. Stopping by the newsstand meant drawing upon knowledge, entertainment, culture, imagination and creativity. All prerogatives lost on account of the shapeless and amorphous surrogates disseminated by the web. This is the principal reason for the cumulative and recurring closure of a great many Italian newsstands: in economics, one speaks of a sector in demand collapse. But it is not merely a newsstand that closes; a piece of the local and national economy closes with it. From 35,000 newsstands in 2005 to about 20,000 in 2024: -43%. With them goes direct turnover of over €400 million per year, but the real hole is the indirect economy that is never calculated. Each average newsstand in a small town generated distribution worth €15,000 per year in margins for local distributors, couriers, and printers. Moreover, the customer who bought the newspaper would have a coffee, buy a bus ticket, place a bet. Download the Medium App One must consider that without a newsstand, the village cinema loses its only physical promotional outlet, not to mention the losses in terms of advertising. When it closes, it is not only the newsagent who loses. The café loses, the driver loses, the printer loses. In Irpinia, over the last five years, Avellino has lost six newsstands, Ariano Irpino three, Sant’Angelo dei Lombardi two. The total loss in Irpinia amounts to about 22% of outlets. All this means that many of the closures mentioned above have deprived Irpinian cafés of several dozen customers, harming workers, distributors and suppliers. These are jobs that do not make the news, but they exist. Another hard blow inflicted upon the local and national economy in the name of a false progress that almost always favours the business of fixers and the usual suspects. However, what is happening in Puglia, a few kilometres from Irpinia, opens up scenarios of renewal based precisely upon the reconversion of disused newsstands. These are prospects so unique and innovative as to have aroused interest worldwide, especially at Stanford University. This is news of enormous significance that few news programmes have disseminated, in the name of a perennial pre-emption by technologies contemptuous of common sense, tradition and art. In San Severo, 40 km from Upper Irpinia, a newsstand abandoned for six years in Via Matteo Tondi became, on 27 March 2026, the Teatro-Edicola Foyer’97: six chairs, four square metres, an idea by Francesco Gavino. The well-received 10- to 15-minute shows have piqued the curiosity of Stanford University. Its academic journal, the Stanford Social Innovation Review [SSIR], has chosen the Teatro Edicola in San Severo as an international case study with the reportage “The Six-Seat Revolution”. Why is Stanford watching us? Because it has realised that those four square metres can once again generate indirect economic activity. Indeed, 60 spectators in an afternoon can become 60 coffees at the neighbouring café. With a symbolic ticket price of €5, we are talking about a cultural micro-economy. Not to mention the indirect income from tourists and journalists who arrive and frequent B&Bs and restaurants. It is the model Irpinia needs: not to leave the void, but to reconvert it virtuously. Every closed newsstand can become an information point, a micro-cinema, a service hub. Otherwise we shall continue to count only the lowered shutters, without counting the money that no longer circulates.
