Results tagged “craigslist”

I was startled by this phenomenally wrong-headed editorial in the San Francisco Bay Guardian. Tim Redmond exposes his insecurities by arguing that Craig Newmark's work in Craigslist doesn't build communities because it threatens the business models of alt weeklies. I don't want to put too fine a point on it, but this is a blatant example of scapegoating horseshit.

First, my credentials: I am a person who worked at the most venerated and well known of all alternative weeklies in the country. I worked for the online group within that organization, which derived the overwhelming majority of its revenues at the time from classified ads, and watched as those revenues were decimated by the arrival of Craigslist in that market. Part of the impact that had on the company was that I lost my job.

I am exactly the person Redmond is ostensibly arguing on behalf of, and so I can say with certainty that he's profoundly wrong. Craigslist builds communities in the cities where it has a presence by providing a home for the gift economy and information trading that is often difficult in contemporary urban society. In short, Craigslist lets people act like neighbors, offering up their items to swap or sell, letting them snipe at each other, helping them find a romantic connection, or just putting you in touch with someone who can find you a job. It builds the human connections that many newspapers aspired to (and a few still provide) and provides a context that real journalists still strive for.

Part of the problem here is the culture of alt weeklies: Despite having a reputation for being politically liberal, they're some of the most conservative organizations in journalism. Hamstrung by unreasonably overentitled union members on one side and underpaid, underappreciated freelancers on the other, it's impossible to create a newsroom where more than a handful of writers are even able to give a damn. And a business model predicated on nickel-and-diming for rent ads or charging brokers a premium price for ALL CAPS in a listing, combined with some edge-of-legality back pages full of ads for whores is certainly not contributing to a community.