Investigative Journalism, Craigslist Style

There’s an interesting tidbit in this Business Week article about Craigslist and its disruptive effect on traditional media. Craig Newmark‘s successful network of free-classifieds and community sites has in effect obliterated much newspaper classifieds revenue, undercutting papers’ ability to fund quality journalism — especially expensive investigating reporting.

BW quotes Newmark as saying that he hopes Craigslist can serve as a forum for volunteer journalists’ work — including on hard-hitting topics and investigative stories. “I’d be willing to pay,” he says.

There’s been much hand-wringing in journalism circles about how important investigative journalism gets paid for in a world where newspapers are in decline. One possibility discussed is the idea of foundations funding some investigative work, to make up for newspapers’ declining ability to do so. Perhaps there’s a role for the Craigslist Foundation in the future that will end up providing a counterweight to Craigslist’s negative effect on newspapers’ ability to fund investigative journalism.

Of course, investigative reporting in that scenario still looks scarier to its practitioners. Investigative reporters working for a big newspaper have the benefits of its libel-insurance policy and company lawyers trained in press law. Even if Newmark makes good on his suggestion of paying for volunteer investigative journalists’ work, I expect that investigative reporting will be a much more dangerous endeavor for individual reporters, whose personal livelihoods could be at risk should they be sued by the subjects of their investigations.