FOX News yesterday, on the Fox & Friends TV show landed some punches on Craigslist, even calling the free classified site Craigslust. It didn’t matter that the comments were ill-informed. Balance was almost non-existent in their discussion except for a brief glossed-over comment acknowledging a response from Craigslist founder, Craig Newmark. The ‘story’ was that prostitutes used Craigslist’s free advertisements to promote their services. Hmm, and News Corp. has never allowed such advertising; News Corp. has not used breasts to promote newspapers?
It’s one thing for a media company to comment on another, however, such comment ought to be fair, factual and balanced. The Fox & Friends spray was none of these things.
Craigslist has come in for other sprays in mainstream media recently: Boston Herald, New York Times – to list just two.
Craigslist is a tiny company causing significant impact on the classified advertising business. Media companies ought to respond to this competition through their offerings to consumers and not through biased stories.