Craigslist founder pro-community journalism

Craig Newmark wants to shake up mass media, much the way his online classifieds site Craigslist.org has rocked the world of the newspaper business by siphoning off their advertising dollars.

Newmark said he'd like to see and support the same type of disruptive technology for the mainstream media--broadcasters and print publishers. In an interview with GradetheNews.org, Newmark said that the mainstream media isn't trustworthy, nor accountable to the public any longer. And he suggests that emerging community journalists on the Internet should counterbalance the short-sightedness of publishers that kow-tow to big business or powerful political interest groups.

Wikipedia.org, he suggests, is the kind of disruptive technology that gives the power to the public, rather than the "victors" who wrote early history books. Similarly, Newmark said he hopes to see collections of news online that are contributed to by amateur journalists, rather than established professionals. In the interview, Newmark even hints that he may invest in Wikipedia for a venture into journalism.

"I think we have a tipping point coming in journalism but I want it to come faster," Newmark said in the interview. He also acknowledged he's out of his field when it comes to journalism.

Other sites of promise he mentioned: Backfence, Northwest Voice and Bayosphere.