Craig Newmark has said, ” … there’s no substitute for professional writing, no substitute for professional editing, and no substitute for professional fact checking …”
He’s been public about his appreciation for journalism in a number of ways, and in fact he’s invested in things like New Assignment.
Many people seem to think Newmark’s craigslist is destroying journalism as we’ve known it. I’ve been critical of this notion, but there’s no doubt that craiglist is one of the disruptors hurting the newspaper business.
Earlier I responded to Scott Karp’s call to save newspaper journalism (not necessarily newspapers) through volunteerism.
In later reading over the comments to Scott’s original post, a notion struck me: Why not use volunteerism through craigslist to promote the value of newspaper websites?
Surely, Craig wouldn’t object. Newspapers have traditionally been the glue that binds communities together. They are valuable institutions that do important civic work. Given Craig’s pronounements on the value of community journalism, a grassroots campaign to promote the good things on newspapers’ websites would be something he would applaud, right?
Now, technically, linking out to a “commercial” web site is a violation of the TOS, but given posts on craigslist like this, this and this, that doesn’t seem to bother Craig or his staff too much.
In that spirit, I posted a little something that Bakersfield.com is doing as a valuable community service: a mash up to report potholes.
Note the example here: Not a general, “hey, this web site is great,” but a specific service that fits within craigslist’s sense of community value.
So, if you value local community journalism, go find something on your local newspaper.com and post a bulletin about it on your local craigslist. Support your local community.
