• Fortune, Monday, December 5, 2005 10:45 AM

We've heard it all before: Newspapers are in terrible trouble, and the Internet is largely to blame. And increasingly we are hearing critics lash out at Craigslist, the little San Francisco-based company that is nothing more than a basic, unadorned online classifieds service. But the company's success, which has drained money from newspapers, has angered many in the industry. "It is the premise behind Craigslist--free, instant ads--that is the fireball sucking the oxygen out of newspaper revenues," says Adam Lashinsky, a Fortune writer. "Whether [the founder] acknowledges it or not," his "brilliant innovation is illustrating not the Golden Rule taught on Sunday but the one taught in Economics 101--that in capitalism, destruction goes hand in hand with creation." In sum, Lashinsky's piece offers little cause for optimism among newspaper execs. Its title, as posted at CNNMoney, is "Wanted: Some Hope for Newspapers." Lashinsky, clearly, sees not much.

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