How Craigslist ‘Can Help Save Journalism’

Blogger Steve Outing has published his ideas on how Craigslist could help boost newspapers’ advertising revenue.

Outing recently composed an open letter addressed to the founders of the online classified service asking for their help to save journalism and posted it to the Reinventing Classifieds blog.

He writes: “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.”

Following his direct appeal, the new media commentator provides several suggestions on how Craigslist could collaborate with newspapers in the future, they include:

 “Allow local newspapers to scrape Craigslist ads.”

 “Allow consumers to place ads on Craigslist via newspaper websites.”

 “Add links on Craigslist to newspaper website classified sections.”

 “Add a news component to Craigslist.”

The Reinventing Classifieds blog is edited by Outing and hosts discussions about potential business models for newspaper classifieds in the digital era.