The Street Journal and its preceeding and succeeding titles, the San Diego Free Press and the Street Journal & San Diego Free Press was an undergound tabloid-style newspaper geared towards San Diego counterculture and radical communities. The paper reported on local news and issues related to the antiwar and peace movements, the movement for a democratic military, San Diego policing, San Diego city government, labor, abortion and reproductive health, student movements, the Chicano movement, Black liberation, and ecology, among others. Running feuds with the San Diego police and C. Arnholt Smith, James Copley, and the San Diego Union-Tribune were also documented in the newspaper. The newspaper was staunchly critical of capitalism, the military industrial complex, the police, corrupt government, President Nixon, the Vietnam War, San Diego police and politicians, and the San Diego Union-Tribune, C. Arnholt Smith, and James Copley.

The paper's intersectional approach to liberation movements is evidenced by articles written by and about specific community movements, and in the paper's publication of El Barrio and Dare to Struggle, geared towards news and issues of the Chicano and Black liberation movements specifically. An article by Cesar Chavez critical of the Catholic Church appears in the December 18, 1969 issue of the Street Journal & San Diego Free Press.

Also covered were state, national and international news, ads, services, reviews. The paper was published on a weekly basis and was a member of the Underground Press Syndicate (UPS). The preceeding title to the first printing of the Street Journal was the San Diego Free Press (no issues of the San Diego Free Press are held by the library). In between being printed as the Street Journal, the paper was published under the title Street Journal & San Diego Free Press.