Craigslist Planning To Shake Up Journalism

by jhiuykjiop Friday, Nov. 25, 2005 at 11:36 AM

The San Francisco Web entrepreneur who's shaken the classified ad business has plans to expand into journalism, too. Speaking at an Oxford University business school forum, Craig Newmark said his news project will be introduced within three months.

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WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - The San Francisco Web
entrepreneur who's shaken the
classified ad business has plans to expand into
journalism, too. Speaking at an
Oxford University business school forum, Craig
Newmark said his news project will
be introduced within three months.

He made it clear his new Web site will have a
bottom-up approach to news stories
and presentation, with readers play the role of
editors.

"Things do need to change," he told the audience
in Oxford, England, The Guardian
reported. "The big issue in the U.S. is that
newspapers are afraid to talk truth
to power. The White House press corps don't speak
the truth ... they are
frightened to lose access they don't have
anyway."

Newmark said his news project will involve Web
technology to let readers decide
which news stories are the most important. At
least one Web site is already
working this field. Digg.com invites readers to
submit stories to be posted on its
Web site. "Once a story receives enough (votes)
from (the site's visitors) it will
be promoted to the front page," the site
explains.=20