Craigslist founder Craig Newmark: Investigative reporting is 'immune system of democracy'

Investigative reporting is critical to protecting democracy, Craigslist founder Craig Newmark said at a National Press Club Headliners Luncheon Sept. 24.

Newmark spoke just a day after announcing he would be investing $20 million in a new investigative journalism nonprofit called The Markup, a collaboration with former reporters from ProPublica. He said that work from what was traditionally print publications is vital given the rise of deception and misinformation that often comes from the highest levels of government.

"For what's done in print journalism, that's specifically and most of all investigative reporting, I think that's more and more important," he said. "Because journalism, and investigative journalism more than anything, is the immune system of democracy. We do need reporters to keep people honest, and that is never going to end."

Newmark founded Craigslist in 1995 initially as an email distribution list among his friends in San Francisco, and it grew into a free classified ads website that now serves 570 cities in 70 countries.

Since stepping back from day-to-day management in 2000, Newmark has focused on philanthropy through his Craig Newmark Philanthropies foundation, which helps fund projects that help journalism, voter protection, women in technology and veterans and their families.

But Newmark said that while he feels strongly about the power of journalism, he would not assume a day-to-day editorial role at The Markup, and would rather "put my money where my mouth is" through funding. He also declined to go into details on what kinds of stories the new outlet would cover.

"Something I've learned in business and everywhere, sometimes you've got to get out of the way and then learn to stay out the way," he said. "That's my history in Craigslist management."

He did say that he would get people to "talk to each other and then work with each other," to resolve what he called "the crisis in journalism and democracy today."

According to him, that spirit of co-operation will be key and may involve engaging with big technology companies like Google, Facebook and Twitter on how they can stop the kinds of misinformation campaigns that the country's intelligence community agreed Russia waged before the 2016 election.

But he said that federal regulations on social media and tech companies, like those floated by President Donald Trump and some of his allies to try and combat perceived anti-conservative bias, would not be effective.

"I don't think positive regulation will come from Washington," he said.

Instead, he said investigative reporting will be key in understanding how the world works and having journalists work with data scientists to break down trends they see.

"Years ago, I realized there are some stories where you can only get at the truth by looking really hard for evidence or hard facts," Newmark said. "Sometimes, you can only figure out what's going on by looking at the numbers and doing some serious data science."