Far be it from The Scrapbook to judge the philanthropic impulses of the extremely wealthy, but the recent announcement of a $20 million gift to the City University of New York struck us as a bit rich. The money, which will fund the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, was the gift of Craig Newmark, described by the New York Times as “the Craigslist entrepreneur who arguably forced the newspaper industry to change its business model after his website put a dent in the lucrative classified ads business.”
Well, everything is “arguable,” we suppose. But Craigslist’s free ad listings did far more than “put a dent” in the “lucrative” business of classified ads. Newmark’s website, launched in 1996, was the first horseman of the Internet apocalypse that gutted the newspaper industry. It extinguished many small, local newspapers that relied on classified ad revenue to stay afloat. The company’s trademark hippie purple peace sign notwithstanding, a Harvard Business School study found that Craigslist led to “an increase in subscription prices, a decrease in circulation, and . . . a decrease in display-ad rates.” Newmark’s network of free sites, the Economist noted, “has probably done more than anything to destroy newspapers’ income.”
Yet suddenly he views himself as journalism’s savior. “In this time,” he told the Times, “when trustworthy news is under attack, somebody has to stand up.” Newmark claims he “developed a serious interest in journalism about 10 years ago, when he started attending journalism conferences,” which, if you’ve ever attended a journalism conference, seems unlikely. But he’s clearly developed the philanthropist’s taste for seeing his name attached prominently to his acts of generosity: The newly endowed CUNY program will now be known as the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism.
“The way you stand up these days is by putting your money where your mouth is, and that’s what I’ve done,” he remarked humbly. That’s great for the non-journalist academics who’ll get sleek new offices at CUNY. But we would have preferred to see some of that dough channeled to the many small-market newspapers that are on life-support. Or, failing that, perhaps a fund for out-of-work reporters. He could put his name on that, too: Call it “Craig’s Kids.”
