The newspapers dug their own graves: A response to "An Open Letter to Craigslist"

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.