By Pat Walters
Naughton Fellow
Among the competitors that newspapers have blamed for their tanking ad revenues, craigslist is king. Classified ads, once a key piece of the newspaper business model, are migrating to the Internet, where it is easier, cheaper and increasingly more effective to post ads. What’s good for craigslist, the logic goes, is bad for newspapers.
But the problem, I think, is not that craigslist is bad. It’s that the newspapers don’t own it. Craigslist is very good, especially for reporters.
More than anything, the site is a killer place to find story ideas.
Newspaper reporters have long been gleaning story ideas from the classified ads in their publications. But the ads are cumbersome on paper. They appear in brain-numbingly small print. Most of them are short, and few have headlines that give readers a quick idea of what the ad is hawking. And, hell, paging through newsprint gets your hands dirty.
Enter craigslist. The site — which is available in 450 cities worldwide, including locales in all 50 states; Washington, D.C.; Puerto Rico and Guam — has been around since Craig Newmark built it in 1995. According to the site, it draws more than 5 billion page views a month, or 15 million unique users.
But let’s get to the good stuff: the ads themselves. Each month, the site registers 14 million new classified ads. And wrapped up in lots of them are story ideas.
Admittedly, this idea does not work everywhere. If you live in the boondocks, it might be a while before craigslist makes it to your town. But if the site continues to grow, as it has over the past 10 years, you won’t have to wait long.
I grew up outside Philadelphia, so we’ll start there. I’m writing this on Tuesday afternoon. I’ll start in the upper left-hand corner.
In what appears to be an effort to stay true to its anti-establishment vibe, the site is kind of a mess. But it’s messy in the same way my desk is. I know everything is there, and if I shift things around long enough, the bits I’m looking for will, without a doubt, appear.
I look in “lost+found.” Sadly, someone’s dignity is missing. As is a member of the Yoder clan’s birth certificate. And, of course, cameras, dogs and more dogs are lost, too.
Those ads were all listed today. The rest I will link to, though, will span the last few days. I love this. If I miss a day of the newspaper, some of the previous day’s ads might disappear. On craigslist, they simply move down the page. I can scan weeks of old ones.
In addition to “lost+found,” the site lists “personals” (very fun to click through), “housing” (less fun) and “jobs” (somewhere in between). My favorite ads, though, generally pop up in the “for sale” section.
I’m not saying we want to write about every petty sale that happens in town. But sometimes the stories behind these transactions are fascinating. Let’s take a look.
In “general,” I find a beast of a kegerator that makes me wonder who has parties that demand the simultaneous attention of three kegs and a collection of wigs that the seller claims will “knock the socks off your partner.” In “collectibles,” I turn up a 1902 Navy anvil for sale. And in “household,” I discover a collection of albums on the block.
I ask not that we write about the things themselves, but the stories they tell us. Like the tip of an iceberg, all I see is a 1902 Navy anvil. What is the story that lingers beneath it?
We find those stories by asking questions about the things. Which ads prompt some of the strangest questions? My vote goes to the “wanted” ads.
What kind of person wants to buy a typewriter these days? Why doesn’t the Air Force ROTC provide drill rifles to its students? Why is someone collecting hotel soaps? And why does this character want “an insanely weird job?”
And, of course, there are more.
Each of these is just a start, a nugget that prompts questions, and lets you know, without even leaving your desk, what people in your community are thinking, talking and caring about.
So, next time the business side knocks craigslist, keep in mind the story it helped you find last week. Let it be a reminder that we’re in this business to tell stories that connect our readers to the human experience. Craigslist is doing just that.
We might as well find a way to be friends.
