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To: Craig and Jim
From: Steve (on behalf of the newspaper industry)
(OK, no, I do not actually speak for the newspaper industry; nor does ReinventingClassifieds.com. But I write this letter to you with the newspaper industry’s, journalism’s, and consumers’ best interests at heart. If any of those folks don’t agree with me, I’m sure they’ll let me know.)
Guys, congratulations on your continued success. Your ideals of putting service to the community above profit and personal gain are admirable. You have created a public service that benefits millions of people and saves them many millions of dollars. Craigslist is now the 7th most trafficked site on the Internet, and seems to exhibit no signs of slowing down. Bravo.
 Craigslist has done much good. How about saving journalism, too, guys? (Photo: mulmatsherm, CC license) |
That said, you have to know that Craigslist has played a role in the downturn of the newspaper industry. I’ve read your quotes and heard your speeches about Craigslist having only a minimal impact on newspaper classifieds. And I can buy that, to a degree. As both of you have said publicly many times, specialized employment, real estate, and auto sites have had a much greater impact; their sales reps have aggressively pursued traditional newspaper advertisers (while you have no sales force), and the growth of those companies has siphoned off billions of dollars that previously went to newspapers. (Although some of those companies now partner with newspapers.)
But there’s a reason I’m writing this letter to you guys, and not those niche ad online giants. I think you might want to help.
Let’s be clear here. I’m not suggesting that you help to save “newspapers.” Readers and advertisers are turning away from print at an increasing rate, and any publisher expecting you guys to help support an outdated medium would be crazy. (Or would they? Print editions of selected Craigslist content?) And I’m not suggesting that you should want to help newspapers save their traditional form of classified advertising. That old, weak model can’t stand up to Craigslist, which as you have acknowledged publicly many times is not at the technological bleeding edge, and especially not against niche job/home/car/dating sites that do live on the bleeding edge.
No, what I’m suggesting is that by helping out the newspaper industry, you’ll be helping save journalism — and thus helping out Craigslist’s users, who deserve to be kept well informed by a viable news media. For while newsPAPERS may be slowly fading from the scene, the type of journalism that is produced by newspaper companies is still sorely needed. The ability of the Fourth Estate to execute its watchdog role over government and business is being badly eroded by the thousands of newspaper journalists walking out the door in the last couple years, and continuing to do so at an alarming rate.
Do we really want to trust our democracy to emasculated newspaper journalism, plus TV and radio news? While broadcasters do produce some outstanding journalism, much TV and radio news is pretty weak, especially at the local level. It’s been the newspaper industry that has carried the banner for investigative journalism (and paid the costly bills for it). Independent web journalism in time may make up for the journalism we lose with newspapers’ decline (ProPublica signals a start; perhaps HuffingtonPost.com can help), but in the meantime things could get ugly.
Aren’t I being presumptuous in thinking that you guys would want to help out the newspaper industry? Am I suggesting that it’s your responsibility? Both answers are No.
Craig, I’ve been seeing your public statements, for some time now, where you’ve expressed concern about newspapers’ plight as it affects watchdog journalism. I noted Craigslist’s $1.6 million donation to endow a faculty chair at the Berkeley Center for New Media. I’ve heard your enthusiasm for ProPublica. I’ve read your comments urging newspapers to do more investigative reporting, not less. (”We need investigative reporters to ask tough questions.” Boston Globe, 6/15/08)
So I think that you want strong journalism. And you are in a position to create more of it. I will not assume that you feel as Google’s Eric Schmidt does; he says that for Google there’s a “moral imperative” to help newspapers. But if you do feel that way too in regard to Craigslist, outstanding.
What can Craigslist do? I hope this open letter succeeds in making you open to having some conversations with the newspaper industry about how to work together. Whatever the two of you do together, if anything, it should benefit Craigslist as well as newspapers and journalism, of course. Here are a few of my ideas. I hope that other readers of this open letter also will share their ideas.
Allow local newspapers to scrape Craigslist ads. I realize that you’ve kept Craigslist closed to this type of activity all these years, but how about opening up the walled garden a bit for a good cause? Allow the local newspaper(s) in the cities you serve to include Craigslist ads — just from that city, if that makes you more comfortable — in with their own classifieds. Ads from Craigslist would include the Craigslist brand and drive traffic back to the local Craigslist site; that’s good for you, in that it exposes your brand to (mostly older) newspaper readers who may not use Craigslist. (You’d think everyone knows Craigslist by now, but anecdotally I know that some older folks still don’t.) For the newspapers, adding Craigslist ads into newspaper classifieds sections reinvigorates them. “From Craigslist” ads could even show up in print classified sections of local newspapers (not just newspaper websites), reversing the shrunken sections’ relevance again. With a reinvigorated newspaper classifieds section, a newspaper could sell contextual display or banner advertising around it (which might support hiring back some of those lost journalists).
Allow consumers to place ads on Craigslist via newspaper websites. If a newspaper classifieds customer wants to place an ad via the paper’s online ordering system, permit them to also post it to the local Craigslist site as part of the process. Since ads coming from a newspaper site will be vetted, you know you won’t be getting spam ads. While most ads coming into Craigslist this way will be in no-fee categories, some will be for the few categories that Craigslist charges for. A newspaper site could collect that money, along with the fee paid for newspaper print/online placement, and send it to Craigslist, minus a commission. So while this is mostly a convenience for the consumer that makes using the newspaper classifieds more relevant, it’s also a revenue source. Craigslist users benefit by seeing more (high-quality) listings on Craigslist.
Add links on Craigslist to newspaper website classified sections. For example, on a Craigslist “bicycles for sale” category, add a link to the bicycles classifieds in the local paper’s website. This is good for Craigslist users; if they haven’t found the perfect bike on Craigslist, you point them to a good source for more bike ads. And of course this is great for newspapers, in that you drive traffic to their classifieds sites, helping them to be relevant again.
Add a news component to Craigslist. This is something I’ve heard you ponder in the past, Craig: some sort of community news component to be added to Craigslist sites. I’ve also heard you muse about wanting to identify the best news sources, and support the notion of citizen journalism. And I’ve read your comments about community: “Effectively, we’re a flea market, and flea markets I think are more about socializing than about commerce.” Craigslist represents a huge community in each of the cities it serves, and members of that community know a lot about what’s going on. It makes sense to add “news” to the Craigslist community, and tap that valuable local information resource that is the many Craigslist users.
So how about letting the local newspapers in your served cities help with that? I haven’t entirely thought this one through, but I think that by combining the oversight of a newspaper’s professional editors and reporters with the members of the Craigslist community, you’d end up with some real depth of community coverage at an acceptable (and possibly quite good) quality level. I’m no longer a fan of free-for-all citizen journalism — I can’t point you to successful examples — so I think that the best way for a Craigslist Local News component to be worthwhile is to combine the contributions of professional journalists and regular Joes and Janes. Newspapers will benefit by having a visible ongoing presence on one of the busiest sites on the web in their markets.
Those are a few of my ideas. Perhaps some of the people reading over our shoulders here will have more and better ideas. (Hint, hint … please comment!)
I know that the newspaper industry’s flagging health isn’t your responsibility, Craig and Jim, and I’ll agree that it’s not directly your fault. But with a little cooperation, we might find that Craigslist can help to turn around newspapers, and bring back some of those lost reporters and editors. I believe that Craigslist’s millions of users would appreciate that.
Will you help?
Tags: craig newmark, craigslist, jim buckmaster
Judy Pokras wrote,
Steve, I love your ideas, especially the one about adding a local news component to craiglist.
Hear, hear!
Link | July 13th, 2008 at 12:13 am
Paul wrote,
Journalism will survive if it brings value to people. Craig’s list has no more of a role to play in that than does Wal-Mart, the CIA or my Aunt Nellie. Journalism has used up its old business model, which we now know was always a charade. So, find a new one. It’s kinda pitiful to say, “We don’t know how to support our important mission and, while we spend a lot of time analyzing and criticizing others, we don’t much care to figure out how to support ourselves. Can someone do that for us?” There is a business case for journalism, several, in fact. Use one.
Link | July 14th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
a guy in cincinnati wrote,
Please?! Saving journalism. Here’s a better idea. Why don’t the board of directors of the newspaper companies save it themselves. Journalism is fine, revenues are not. Just because they (OLD media) cannot produce a serious business model for today doesn’t mean Craigslist is the answer.
Here’s an idea, call it what it is. You are writing to say that Craigslist is the great hope, so you can only demonize them when they say, “No thanks.” This is just another garbage attempt at the blame game.
Just do real journalism and get away from all the fluff (art and leisure, automotive, lifestyle et cetera) papers bring and costs will be cut considerably. Or is it that maybe nobody wants a resource that delivers history (yesterdays news) as opposed to news (what happened today).
The beauty that is Craigslist is that it is independent of the hierarchy of the media conglomerates.
Listen, Listen!
Your masthead on this site reads,”Traditional classifieds are broken. Let’s work together to reinvent them.” Ummm, Craigslist has accomplished that… so where is the working together part? Ohhhhh, you just want a piece of their pie. That’s the together part, huh?
Link | July 14th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
Dave Mastio wrote,
Steve,
Your ideas are exactly the kind of creative, cooperative effort that could make a functioning news ecology to support journalism.
I am afraid, however, that I have lost faith in business side leaders. I’ll bet you $1,000 if Craig turns around and says yes to everything you just proposed, that none of the top newspaper chains would be willing to do their part in the cooperative effort (your first two ideas) within 12 months, not even at the experimental stage of a single daily newspaper. Not Gannett. Not McClatchy. Not News Corp. Not Tribune. Not Lee. Nobody.
Scape Craigslist ads and put them in our paper? Hell no, we’d be building their brand.
Let our customers easily spread their ads to craigslist? Hell no, we’d be sending paying customers to the place they can get the same or better product for free. Maybe they won’t come back.
Link | July 14th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
Derek Willis wrote,
Steve,
I’m not sure how Craiglist is even partly to blame for the newspaper industry’s failure to respond to the forces that overwhelmed the classified market. They built a better classifieds product when the news business did not and now you feel they owe journalism something for doing it? Perhaps the news business should be obligated to plant more trees, too, or find ways to boost the “town crier” industry.
A better plea would be for the news business to actually try and build products that more people want to use. If we don’t actually solve some of these problems ourselves, there’s little point in believing in some external savior. By growing our audience, then maybe Craigslist and other online operations will want to partner more with us, not out of some sense of obligation, but because it makes good sense to do so.
Derek Willis
Link | July 14th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
Craigslist hearts newspapers | BNN Broadcast wrote,
[…] smart friend of mine has written an open letter to the CraigsList founder, you know, Craig. Craig, who seems like a very nice guy (answers his own email and actually […]
Link | July 14th, 2008 at 2:51 pm
Steve Outing wrote,
Dave M: I’ll pass on that bet, because I suspect you’re correct.
Then again, I keep thinking (and hoping) that things have finally gotten bad enough for the newspaper industry that they’ll actually try some radical(?) ideas rather than just finishing off milking the old cash cow and retiring. A guy can dream!
A guy in Cincinnati: I’m not “writing to say that Craigslist is the great hope”; that’s misreading me. Craigslist is but one of many relationships that the newspaper industry needs to foster. Google’s CEO says his company has a “moral imperative” to help journalism; there’s another relationship that publishers need to work on. So much of Internet success is about interrelationships, linking, and being open to outside relationships (think Facebook third-party apps). This is an area that newspapers have sucked at; they’re still primarily in walled garden mode and opening up and leveraging everything else out there just hasn’t been enough of a priority. Some sort of local-news partnership with Craigslist (not that getting both sides to agree would be easy) makes sense when you take in the view from a different perspective.
Link | July 14th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
Steve Outing wrote,
Derek W.: I tried to write my “plea” with the notion that a relationship between Craigslist and newspapers would benefit BOTH parties.
Link | July 14th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
Robin 'Roblimo' Miller wrote,
Why should craigslist allow postings through newspaper site gateways? Why not through my personal site and other non-traditional media sites?
Link | July 14th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
Steve Outing wrote,
Roblimo: Craigslist has resisted postings through other site gateways, and you’d have to ask them why. (Logical explanation: logistical nightmare in terms of vetting incoming ads from third parties. Newspaper ads would come in already vetted, so that addresses that potential problem.) My reasoning for suggesting an exception for newspapers is that the interests of the public (for news and information and a watchdog role by the press) are served by supporting newspapers in their time of need. I might be less inclined to say “do this just for newspapers” if other local news media did a credible job, but imagine leaving local news coverage and watchdog role to TV and radio: scary. Web/digital news sources remain in infancy compared to what newspapers do for a community. Ergo, in my mind at least, newspaper companies deserve some special dispensation.
Link | July 14th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
Derek Willis wrote,
Steve,
Maybe so, but by any objective reading of the situation and your post, there’s no necessity that Craiglist do this, whereas it’s clear that newspapers are in the position of asking for the help. And if that’s the case, blaming Craiglist for its success when the responsibility rests primarily on the newspaper industry is a poor way to go about it. It’s like a soccer team that just got beaten 9-0 asking the other team to lend it some of its best players: neither fair nor a good long-term solution. Relying on moral imperatives or plaintive appeals is an extremely poor strategy, I hope you will agree. So why isn’t your appeal directed to within instead of without?
Link | July 14th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
Steve Outing wrote,
Derek: You wrote: “So why isn’t your appeal directed to within instead of without?” I’m advocating that the newspaper industry open up to other relationships (see my other replies in this thread), and Craigslist is but one potentially important relationship (in theory). Ergo, my plea is not directed solely “without”. Also, in my other writing venues I have spent many thousands of words suggesting how newspapers can create services more relevant to today’s media consumer — as have a bunch of other media pundits, analysts and columnists. The essay above is but one of many suggestions for newspapers to reinvent themselves. This one happens to involve a potential partner who appears from previous public statements to have some openness to the notion of supporting the newspaper industry — especially if the benefits go both ways.
Link | July 14th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
Lost Remote » Open letter urges Craigslist to help newspapers wrote,
[…] Outing has written an open letter to Craigslist on behalf of the newspaper industry. He’s not suggesting that Craigslist save newspapers, […]
Link | July 14th, 2008 at 6:08 pm
Yojoe wrote,
Steve,
I’ve argued before that Craig Newmark is a con artist who happily presides over a cesspool of fraudulent activity because he knows it’s in his business interest to bulk up on content.
It’s a sign of madness to consider allying with Craigslist, no matter what its level of perceived success.
A close look at the underbelly of activity on Craig would, as they say, “frighten the horses.”
Link | July 14th, 2008 at 6:40 pm
Could Craigslist Save Local Newspapers? « Wir sprechen Online. wrote,
[…] open letter to Craigslist suggests that they help to save local ‘newspapers‘; http://is.gd/Ryi […]
Link | July 14th, 2008 at 11:01 pm
Could Craigslist Save Journalism? « Wir sprechen Online. wrote,
[…] Print Outing’s open letter to Craigslist suggests that they help to save journalism; http://is.gd/Ryi […]
Link | July 14th, 2008 at 11:04 pm
Janet DeGeorge wrote,
Hi Steve
There are many sites that are thriving due to aggregation like Simply Hired and Indeed.com. Not sure what their revenue model is, but they are both great sites. Sites like Backpage.com, which any newspaper can sign up with, are Craigslist with a twist, you can pay a little extra for your ad to be published. One customer I have gets 4000 paid classified ads that way, and they are a weekly!
That said, there is no proof whatsoever that dumping Craigslist ads into the newspaper print or online products will change anything. First, each ad would have to be censored by a person since porn sneaks in everywhere, and the employment scams, real estate, rental fair housing violations and other standards newspapers goes by are not strictly followed. Each ad would have to be viewed by a real person. That is time consuming and costly.
Technically, it’s a nightmare because each newspaper has different front end systems and different online systems. So easy integration with each newspaper…both time and money. That could stop it right there.
Then promoting that you now have Craigslist ads! How will that happen? Hmmm…newspapers spending money on promotion? Won’t happen. Promoting it within, well, that is not going to do anything but give free ads to those people who already pay for them now…all they have to do is put them on Craigslist and they will also be with the newspaper. Why pay the newspaper any more. So basically, all free ads. And let me tell you, there is still plenty of paid revenue in those pages.
The San Diego Union spent the equivalent of $3 million dollars trying to increase their private party and FREE ads. They went up a reasonable amount in ads during the promotion and right back to the same amount after the promotion. I did not recall any significant increases in either circulation or quality of journalism because of it. $3 million dollars!
There are sites out there that beat Craigslist in volume at the local level (www.KSL.com classifieds, a radio station in the Salt Lake area) which proves you don’t have to be Craigslist to own the classified market, you need to PROMOTE IT, and promote it daily. And KSL also proves that radio is not dead. Just look at the 93,000 classified ads on their site.
Will there be more display ads if there are more line ads in the newspaper. I doubt it. Not the way newspaper advertising departments are organized now.
Would increasing the volume of classified ads with Craigslist be good to bulk up the skinny classified pages or the online component, sure. Would it save newspapers without other radical changes? Of course not. If you sold classified ads as long as I have, managed classified departments as long as I have, and trained and consulted with as many newspapers as I have, you’d know that this is not the revenue answer newspapers are looking for. Heck, some newspapers already give away free ads now and both revenue and circulation still keep declining.
Craigslist is popular with the very people who don’ read newspapers or go to newspaper websites. To change this tide would take a tremendous amount of solid promotion to get those people to look at the paper again or the newspaper website regardless of the volume. Just adding Craigslist ads does mean “build it and they will come”.
If the newspaper industry is interested in getting back their market, they have to promote themselves like any other business in a media mix fashion. And that doesn’t mean giving away movie tickets with subscription start ups. It also means significant changes in the editorial side as well.
Bascially, IMHO, newspapers have got to get their journalistic balls back. I can’t think of any other term that puts it more clearly. They have to take a clear and aggression stand on vital issues in their community and the country and incite readers to act. A newspaper has to stand for something, not just regurgitate the vital statistics of the day and the same 4th of July safety articles each year. Why isn’t each newspaper screaming to readers to email government officials about the gas prices, inundate the white house with letters on the war or health care issues? Stop reporting the news and start making the news. Get people talking about your paper again, piss off some advertisers again and get your point across to the people.
Newspaper circulation is down because what they write is not stimulating anyone any longer. But leave out the crossword puzzle and 100 seniors will call complaining.
Craigslist saving newspapers…a drop in the bucket.
Janet DeGeorge
Link | July 14th, 2008 at 11:43 pm
Dave Mastio wrote,
Cesspool or not, CraigsList works. I’ve put up job ads on CL at the same time I ran the same ad in the local daily both online and in print. CL got me several quality local candidates (and some maybe questionable offers to outsource to Indian and Eastern Europe) whole my local paper got me nada.
When I am an advertiser, I want results, not a puritanical content analysis of the online environment. Having worked in a lot of newspapers, I’ve seen far too much worrying about potential criticism for this or that ad or this or that language in a story and far too little worrying about what serves readers (people might be mad if we put in the full quote from Jesse Jackshon) and what serves advertisers (some bad stuff might get in if we build our readers a freewheeling marketplace).
Who the hell appointed us nannies to the world?
Link | July 15th, 2008 at 6:05 am
Dear Craigslist, Save the Newspaper Industry, xoxo / Jossip wrote,
[…] losing millions and millions in classified advertising revenue might have a chance at survival, argues Steve Outing on ReinventingClassifieds.com. In an open letter to Craig Newmark & Co., he posits: Allow local newspapers to scrape […]
Link | July 15th, 2008 at 9:32 am
Can Craigslist Save The Daily? - Rev2.org wrote,
[…] just finished reading an intriguing open letter from Steve Outing. The letter was addressed to Craig Newmark, who is the founder of […]
Link | July 15th, 2008 at 10:07 am
Linky Goodness, July 15 wrote,
[…] not gone yet. But Steve Outing has written an open letter to craigslist asking Craig to save the newspapers, with detailed instructions on how […]
Link | July 15th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
Michael Odza wrote,
I’m with Janet on this one! This is the smallest idea you’ve had, Steve, and I mean that in the best possible way, because 99+% of your columns in Editor and Publisher and elsewhere have, as you said, exhorted newspapers to do so many right things.
Still, it IS an idea and a new one, and if by proposing something at all, you get one publisher to say instead of a flat no, something like, “Well, Steve’s crazy, but maybe if we try this other thing that this crazy idea sparked in me…” it will be a good thing.
Link | July 15th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
Jon wrote,
Thoughts on “An open letter to Craigslist”
[Originally published at http://www.rhubarbarism.com 7/15/2008]
Steve Outing, of Reinventing Classifieds dot com, published an “open letter” to Craigslist founder Craig Newmark last week. The gist of his well-intentioned argument is that Craigslist should share classified ad resources with the newspapers industry in order to preserve journalism.
The plea of Outing’s letter, which is what it amounts to, is based on the premise that Craigslist took advertisers from newspapers, which sunk them in the troubled times the industry is currently weeping about– which will no doubt intensify into outright caterwauling due to the resignation of evil cost-cutting publisher David Hiller from the L.A. Times this week. Even he, who seemed to revel in the do-more-with-less bullshit, couldn’t stand more cuts.
My initial reaction was to dig up factoids about the newspaper industry: Wall Street’s insistence on maintaining margins in the upper 20 and 3o percents, the gutting of news departments, how newspapers sunk themselves under speculative debt loads, and the failures of mainstream info-tainment to add to the public discourse. Better people than myself have argued these points factually: Molly Ivins, Jack Shafer of Slate, and, well, me a couple months back (I had a better haircut then).
Private profit or public interest?
Any liability for the health of the newspaper industry by Craigslist would have to be based on the premise that newspapers in their current form serve the public interest. As consolidation has increased under fewer companies since the 1996 telecommunications act which– for those with short memories, was enacted under a Democrat named Clinton– the mania towards profit has geared them away from real news. It just cost too much.
The Legacy of all this cost-cutting and consolidation?
The mainstream failed horrifically after September 11th, cowed by pressure from authorities, and a seemingly jingoistic public. For that failure, we have illegal internment camps, unregulated telecommunications companies spying on people, two wars in faraway lands with thousands dead, oh, and record profits for the oil industry. The newspapers may still do human interest pieces, resembling TV fluff more every day, but they (the publishers and decision-makers) mostly missed the mark on important issues where it took bravery and a willingness to be unpopular.
Anyway, would Craigslist’s support even matter to journalism?
Outing makes the relevant point that journalism is necessary for a democratic society. Right. But, how would it realistically help journalism if Craigslist propped the profit margins of these media conglomerates back up at 30 percent? If they saw a way to make money without in-depth news, would they really rush to fill the newsrooms back up? Wall Street just doesn’t work like that.
Outing is right when he says that the public needs full-time professional journalists to do real investigative work, but it will likely take a different form than the archaic, top-heavy newspapers. Anyway, Craigslist’s efforts would be better spent in real journalism projects, non-profits like Pro-Publica that aren’t so sullied by scrabbling for stockholders. Dare I suggest it: Cooperatives.
Shafer argues that Wall Street will eventually move on, leaving newspaper companies divested of most infrastructure and much of their reputations, only then, he says, will newspapers return to local ownership.
But in an increasingly online world, there’s not much point in resurrecting newspapers. They should, as Shafer terms it, be liquidated. When they neglected the public trust for short-term profit it just happened to be during the biggest technological revolution since the printing press; they dug their own graves.
Link | July 15th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
Dan Thornton wrote,
Does this not assume that bulking up the classified section will somehow appeal to readers who will chose to pay money for a print edition of craigslist/ebay alongside content which isn’t appealing (or why is print in decline)?
A better option for newspapers is to finally accept the decline of the traditional forms of publishing and revenue, and finally start being really adventurous in finding a replacement. There are still ways to make money online, but they take more effort and risk than clinging to old methods as they slowly die.
I’m a huge believer in the value of journalism, as something which has a certain skill set different to writing, and a requirement of time for research etc which makes it something not many part-time bloggers and writers are able to achieve consistently. But for those journalists who correctly believe that it’s the message that’s important, rather than the medium, it’ll be relatively easy for them to make the leap and build up a living wage from their online efforts…
Personally I’d rather we stopped wasting time by trying to prop up a 20th Century business model, and instead started getting radical and finding the better version.
Link | July 15th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
links for 2008-07-15 | James Mitchell wrote,
[…] An open letter to Craigslist Outing’s open letter to Craigslist suggests that they help to save journalism (tags: journalism craigslist newspapers future) […]
Link | July 15th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
Steve Outing wrote,
Thanks for the laugh, Michael O.! Yeah, I frequently feel like newspaper publishers think I’m crazy. But I think there’s value in putting more ideas out there, so I’ll keep doing it.
Link | July 15th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
STL Social Media Guy » Blog Archive » links for 2008-07-16 wrote,
[…] An open letter to Craigslist | ReinventingClassifieds.com Do we really want to trust our democracy to emasculated newspaper journalism, plus TV and radio news? (tags: journalism craigslist newspapers future classifieds stlt) […]
Link | July 16th, 2008 at 9:33 am
KnoxvilleTalks.com | Knoxville, TN | > Can - or should - Craigslist save journalism? wrote,
[…] Outing writes an open letter to the Craiglist founder: Craig, I’ve been seeing your public statements, for some time now, where you’ve expressed […]
Link | July 16th, 2008 at 11:55 am
Matt wrote,
Steve,
Part of my problem with this appeal is that you’ve linked two realities that share only an oblique relationship: 1) The newspaper classifieds business has grown decreasingly viable. 2) Local watchdog journalism is suffering.
I’d call it a failure of imagination to attack the latter problem by attempting to slap a sort of dubious band-aid on the former.
You’re appealing to a small (in market cap) Web company whose main franchise is free classifieds to siphon off some fraction of its audience’s attention to local newspapers’ classifieds sections, in the hopes that the newspapers can convert some fraction of that free-classifieds attention into paid classified revenue, some fraction of which will ostensibly be invested into performing local watchdog journalism. Really? Is that *really* a plan for buoying local watchdog journalism, even in the short term?
I’m not arguing there aren’t links between the function of investigative journalism and the health of the newspaper industry, or between the health of the newspaper industry and the newspaper classifieds business, or between the newspaper classifieds business and Craigslist. But there are so many complicating factors that your proposal seems like drilling for oil in Alaska to lower the price of gas in America. To name just one complication - how high do you really think watchdog journalism will sit on any spreadsheet of budget allocations made in the event of a temporary classifieds windfall?
We seem to all agree that other models are emerging that might presage how investigative journalism is supported in the future. Most of us can agree that there’s a gap between the drop-off of the prevailing current model that supports this work and the maturation of these emerging models. We all want to lessen that gap. But hadn’t we better do it by trying to boost some of those fledgling models to maturity? And given Craig Newmark’s recent efforts, isn’t he more likely to smile on that goal?
I’d maybe rewrite your letter and see if you can get Mr. Newmark to sign on. Call it an “Open letter to the newspaper industry.” Ask for the industry’s help in imagining models for investigative journalism that aren’t tied - however weakly - to a broken business.
Link | July 16th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
Brad wrote,
I chose to study Journalism for my undergrad degree simply because I enjoyed writing. I quickly found myself sitting in classes where idealistic journalism professors exclaiming the merits of a free press and its importance to democracy between debating industry standards for ethics. When I took my first job as a reporter I made $10 an hour, barely enough to buy food let alone pay student loans. I was told that Journalism was a calling to public service. My love for Journalism died with the arrival of my first paycheck. I hope the newspaper industry goes under completely. I hope the publishers and ownership groups who preach Idealism, Ethics and ‘Journalism is a calling’ while cashing out on hefty profit margins lose everything. I hope all the talent ends up uniting online where they can be free from conflicts of interest. Even though this is my first visit to Reinventing Classifieds, I hope that the recent spotlight from the open letter really spotlights the swansong of this dinosaur industry and the dinosaurs who have profited in the name of democracy. Classifieds… not worth saving. Not worth reinventing. Evolve or die off newspaper industry. I welcome a changing of the guard.
Link | July 16th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Steve Outing wrote,
Response to Matt:
1. You (and others who have been critical of my letter to Craigslist) seem to believe that newspaper classifieds are kaput — just limping along till their inevitable death. I don’t believe that, and am involved in a project (still behind the curtain) that I think can revitalize them.
2. A partnership with Craigslist, as I’ve suggested, is not a reflection that “we have no good ideas and we need your help, Craig!” It’s one of but many things newspapers can try. (Unless of course their publishers believe as some of you here that classifieds can no longer be counted on to be part of the way that news-gathering is funded.) Don’t misinterpret what I’m saying; I recognize that Craigslist is a small (albeit highly visible) company, but I think that there are some ways, which I described, where Craig & Co. and newspapers can help each other. (Where it appears unbalanced, I suppose, is that newspapers are tanking as advertisers abandon them while Craigslist is on top of the world.)
3. Craig Newmark has expressed his personal interest in journalism issues, so it’s logical to at least ask. His lack of response may mean he’s not interested and thinks I’m just being annoying, but I felt like someone needed to ask.
4. It’d be a “band-aid” if this was all newspapers were left to do. It’s but one small thing involving another company. You and other critics seem to be looking at this in black-vs-white.
Craigslist may be a small company but it has the 11th most trafficked site (well, network of sites) in the US, according to Alexa. (Today’s ranking; seems to move around of course.) Newspapers pay attention (well, at least they should!) to Facebook and other big players; many build Facebook applications and try to leverage its many millions of users. They should do the same with Craigslist. Craig hasn’t been open to external relationship; I’m urging them to consider it.
I don’t think there will be a temporary classifieds windfall even if Craig suddenly decided to implement all my ideas. It might make some difference though. It’s about working out relationships and leveraging the audiences of Craigslist, Facebook, and a whole bunch of other successful online entities.
Actually, I think you’re wrong on the budget thing. Most smart publishers recognize that investigative/watchdog quality journalism is necessary for them to be relevant to their audiences. They won’t survive in the new world serving up a load of low-cost crap (ahem, Tribune may be headed that way), any more than that could work in the old world.
So we do both. May a thousand ProPublicas bloom. And may newspapers stop acting so dumb by refusing to leverage what others are doing successfully (including Craigslist, if Craig will permit it), so they remain in the game.
I of course wrote this piece to generate discussion, and it’s done that. I’d love for people to spin off it. Perhaps you’ll write that letter? 8^)
Link | July 16th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
Jeff McNeill wrote,
I don’t want craigslist to save journalism. I want them to keep doing what they do really well, which is online classifieds and community. That is their mission, and they need to execute on it.
Journalism can save itself, which it seems to be doing, at least the part of journalism which is now embracing blogging and citizen reporting.
K thx bye
Link | July 16th, 2008 at 7:31 pm
Dale Peskin wrote,
Steve,
It takes real chutzpah to ask Craig Newmark and Jim Buckmaster of craigslist to help newspapers salvage their classifieds businesses and thus save democracy, or at least the part it that newspapers presumably foster.
Your clever open letter to them, at the same time congratulating and blaming, misplaces responsibility. It assumes they have the authority to solve a problem that the news industry inflicted upon itself: how to replace a subsidy predicated on a controlling and authoritarian business practices.
Steve, I can’t decide if your modest proposal is naive, self-serving or tragically poetic.
Craig Newmark never set out to disrupt the newspaper industry. Motivated only by helping people out, he created a simple list for his friends, initially distributed through email, and later on the Internet when one friend showed him how to create a Web page. Their trust in him, as well as a passion for serving others through technology, gave craigslist list its authority.
You miss the magic of craigslist. It is Craig’s “friends” — a community that has grown to 40 million people a month in 500 U.S. cities and 50 countries (larger than all news sites combined by several factors) — who disrupted newspaper classifieds. Call them users, customers, an audience, a market, or marketplace, they discovered that through craigslist they could do for themselves what others charged excessively in order to handsomely subsidize their businesses.
Trust in Craig, still craigslist’s chief customer service representative, remains at the heart of it. So are democratic, open markets: the right of the people to conduct commerce and journalism among and between themselves.
Meantime, newspapers charged premium prices for access to an arcane classification system that published a few, annotated lines of shorthand in very small type at the back of a dense product with limited, daily distribution. The hard-to-find, hard-to-read, one-way advertisements were distributed to parts of a relatively small geographic region for sellers and buyers to discover, at least those who happened to buy the newspaper and read the classifieds section on the very day they were prepared to make a transaction.
For a lousy experience, newspapers in growth markets such as Dallas, Denver and San Jose made hundreds of millions of dollars that drove margins of 30 per cent or more with these high-yield liners. The hard-to-find, hard-to-read notices were distributed to parts of a relatively small geographic region for sellers and buyers to discover, at least those who happened to buy the newspaper and read the classifieds section on the very day they were prepared to make a transaction.
The experience was not significantly improved by importing this business to the online version of the newspaper. What didn’t work in print didn’t work online.
Newspapers used their profits not to expand their social mission, but rather to drive the stock price of the companies that owned them, to finance acquisitions, to reward management, and to acquire additional wealth through cost-management: death by acquisition accelerated by cutting their way to profitability. Financing news operations has never been much a part of it; ask any editor who has asked for budget increases or additional staff to cover a society growing increasingly complex and competitive. The moral imperative is a myth perpetuated by editors and journalists, not by the publishers you are asking Craig and Jim to help.
Now, other forms and systems – a collaborative, more democratic Fifth Estate, if you will — are emerging to replace an institution that is broken. Almost anyone can deploy the simple technology that craiglist uses. Anyone can participate in its journalism and commerce.
Publishers would be better served by implementing enlightened business strategies with a passionate consumer connection at its core. Until then, they will continue to be cast in a survival drama of their own making.
Newspapers are like a broken satellite falling of orbit. The technology is failing; the mission may soon be scuttled. To stay in orbit, the engineers must repair and update the technology systems. More importantly, the flight controllers must restore trust in the mission and its results by relinquishing control. Otherwise, Satellite Newspaper – classifieds and all — will burn up in the atmosphere.
Craig Newmark and Jim Buckmaster may be talented astronauts, but they shouldn’t go down with the pilots of their competitors’ obsolete ships.
Dale
Link | July 17th, 2008 at 11:53 am
Steve Outing wrote,
Dale: Chutzpah? I suggested that they do something that would benefit BOTH Craigslist and newspapers — and benefit the public, which both parties care about. I think you misread my intent. (In fact, I’m feeling a bit like the New Yorker cartoonist who did the Obamas cover: misunderstood.)
Actually, having not heard back from Craig or Jim, I was feeling concerned that they might be annoyed by my public suggestion, so yesterday I asked. Word back from Jim (paraphrasing): We’re not annoyed, and we’ll let you know if we decide to respond.
I don’t believe I “blamed” them; and I’ve said and wrote many times that if Craig hadn’t come along, someone else would have, since the forces that led us to free classifieds were undeniable. What I said was that it’s undeniable that Craigslist had a negative impact on newspapers, and thus journalism. I made it clear it’s not their “fault,” and that they bear no responsibility to help out. BUT, they are in a position where they could help out if they wanted to — and public statements by Craig lead me to believe that he MIGHT. Ergo, what’s the harm in asking? None that I can see.
I understand the magic of Craigslist. I’ve long been one of its fans, and Craig has helped me buy and sell a bunch of stuff over the years. (It’s been a LONG time since I paid for a newspaper classified ad.) I’ve long been complaining about how bad newspaper classifieds in their traditional form are, and how they are ineffective compared to Craigslist (at least for merchandise categories).
As I’ve stated in this comment thread, I’m all for your “collaborative, more democratic Fifth Estate.” You say that that’s emerging to “replace an institution that is broken.” I say that will co-exist with a reinvented (and probably smaller) news
paperindustry. What we both agree is emerging won’t effectively replace hundreds of journalists working in a community right away. So as much as I think that newspaper executives screwed up by being so conservative about innovation and investing in entrepreneurial initiatives over the last 15 years, I don’t wish them ill.I like your space analogy, but I’m not asking Craig or Jim to be the superhero astronauts who save the falling newspaper industry satellite. I think they are people who might help save the ship, though, by doing some things that also are in their best interests. And what I’ve suggested is but one small thing in the much larger list of things publishers need to do to stop from crashing into the earth.
After reading Alan Mutter’s Newsosaur blog postings in recent days, I think the industry needs to forge lots of partnerships like the one I’ve suggested, and learn how to be truly entrepreneurial fast. … What a fascinating time to be in this business.
Link | July 17th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
De Koopman » Blog Archive » Columnist: “Help papieren rubrieksadvertentie overleven!” wrote,
[…] Outing, een Amerikaanse columnist op het snijvlak van kranten en internet, roept de Amerikaanse variant op Marktplaats.nl, Craigslist.org, op om mee te helpen de krantenindustrie […]
Link | July 18th, 2008 at 2:57 am
Casey Applen wrote,
Apple & Oranges. Blogs vs. Pulp.
Why are you not complaining about your freebee newspapers instead of CL?
All advertising is all about audience targeting. If your attempting to target the trailer trash market CL will get you there. Get sharper. Know your target viewer.
Newspapers are about quality of service to their market. CL is not. But once newspapers start to outsource their services, that may longer be true. Ask Dell!
Link | July 22nd, 2008 at 1:29 pm
Delia wrote,
Hi Steve!
I hope that after this little (apparently unintended) experiment, you will walk away with a much less naive notion of what craigslist is all about. I didn’t give your letter much importance when I first saw it (although your suggestions were not bad, your characterization of what craigslist is and does sounded way to groupie-like to take seriously). I *am* pleased to see that it has gained some traction (other articles and people, such as Jay Rosen, mention it) and I hope it will be a learning experience for a lot of people.
Delia
P.S. take care! D.
Link | July 22nd, 2008 at 3:30 pm
henry pollson wrote,
Definitely use Angie’s List rather than Craigslist if you’re looking for local services. Here’s a good breakdown of the service.
Link | August 11th, 2008 at 10:09 am
De nieuwe reporter » Blog Archive » Craig Newmark: nagel aan de doodskist van de krantenindustrie? wrote,
[…] te makkelijk van de kritiek af, vindt Internet-columnist Steve Outing. In juli publiceerde hij een open brief aan Newmark en Buckmaster waarin hij hun vroeg samen te werken met de krantenindustrie om de […]
Link | September 10th, 2008 at 2:56 am
Craigslist Proxy wrote,
Great post, I\’ll keep coming back to check on updates!
Link | October 23rd, 2008 at 4:14 am
akzero wrote,
To Janet DeGeorge,
Of course Utah’s KSL Radio is not dead… it’s a mormon owned station!!! All of the church owned properties do very well.
Link | November 6th, 2008 at 12:29 pm