So Craigslist killed the newspapers? This is something David Simon alludes to in his testimony to the Senate committee, and is being discussed on Twitter. Newspapers have been pointing at Craigslist for decreasing classified revenue for awhile.

First, hasn’t anyone ever heard of Pennysaver? They were giving away free classified ads long before Craigslist, yet I never heard the newspapers point to them as the culprit of their demise. In fact, a Pennysaver still gets delivered to my house every week. So the “free” part of the Craiglist model was nothing new.

Second, let’s look at real estate and employment listings. Sites like Monster.com or Yahoo  Real Estate charge money to list in their websites. Guess what? They’re doing fine. So the whole “Craigslist is free” argument by newspapers just doesn’t hold up to logic. People are spending money to list jobs and real estate on websites, why not in newspapers?

That question requires newspapers to partake in some introspective analysis, and not simply declare themselves victims of circumstance. Here’s the big one: Why aren’t people reading newspapers?

Circulation Decline

The real problem facing the newspapers is decline in circulation, codeword for loss of readers. If ads in their pages were effective, people would be buying them. But less and less people are actually reading newspapers, hence why ads in their pages just aren’t working.

The following Wall Street Journal chart, from March 2008, highlights the decline in circulation.

So, why aren’t people reading newspapers? Well there’s several things happening:

1. The internet and 24/7 news channels delivered news in real-time, something the papers can not do.
2. News online is, for the most part, free. Who wants to pay 50 cents to read that same free news in paper format?
3. Online sites are aggregating content, “stealing” newspaper content to post to their own websites.
4. With the ever-increasing ease of publishing on the internet, the newspapers faced more competition. This is also happening in tv and radio, with more and more viewers and listeners going to YouTube, Hulu, iTunes and other sites to get their content.

Obviously the newspapers are facing many more challenges than Craigslist.

The Death of Government Accountability?

Hardly. I love when people claim we depend on investigative journalists, within the confines of print, to hold government accountable. First off, last I checked, tv news was doing a fine job at this. Second, this is the internet age, something the newspapers never quite understood…which is why they don’t understand the incredible power of accountability the internet itself bestows upon the people.

The internet breaks down all previous walls to communication. It forms a collective conscious from everyone around the world’s input, allowing it to be everywhere and anywhere all at once. That in itself is accountability. As I noted in my previous post, this grassroots form of accountability is also much less likely to be swayed by “favors” or by applied pressure. There is less danger of important stories not being reported.

There are Challenges to the Demise of Newspapers

I’m not claiming that there are no challenges created by the demise of newspapers, I’m merely pointing out that it’s neither the end of democracy or the end of government accountability. The number one problem I see is that anyone can say anything on the internet, and people will believe it. Newspapers are held to a high standard of accuracy, something that cannot be easily replaced by blogs.

But just because newspapers are done doesn’t mean journalists are done. Journalists will move on to online endeavors that have profitable business models. Or perhaps they’ll venture off on their own. I don’t see the internet killing the profession of journalism, I see the internet freeing journalists from the overhead of printing and delivering papers.

Where does that lead us? I don’t know. What I do know: taking the power of information control out of the hands of a few, and putting it into the hands of the masses is a good thing.