Our sister site FBNY called our attention to this NYT piece about Craig Newmark, the "Craig" of Craigslist who is dismissing the accusation that he single-handedly destroyed newspapers but is -- funny enough -- financing investigative journalism.

In the face of this expansion, Mr. Newmark is becoming more of a public figure, capitalizing on his success to promote causes that include supporting the Barack Obama campaign and financing investigative journalism -- not, he insists, to compensate for any damage Craigslist has done to the newspaper business, which he calls "an urban myth."

Newmark has donated up to $20,000 to various journo organizations including factcheck.org, sunlightfoundation.com and publicintegrity.org. In case you're looking. And let's face it, you are.

San Diego Union-Tribune ombudsman/media columnist Carol Goodhue answers readers' grammar questions with a few questions of her own -- in the form of a multiple choice. If you're itching to waste a few minutes (and can't get that damn Sodoku site to load), take a look.

From our tips box:

A number of journalists have asked our editorial folks if The Times would be forced to endorse Prop. 98 because of Sam Zell's financial stake in the outcome. As you can see from today's lede opinion piece we did not (and in fact specifically mention that we're going against Zell's interests).

Former Star Tribune Editor Tim J. McGuire spoke at the Northwest International Circulation Executives this week and had this to say to newspaper junkies who are hand-wringing about the future of print:

Find your own stinkin' lifeline!

Build your own damn hope!

Discover your own worthiness.

Stop waiting for it to be conferred on you by an aging, retired newsman or by your confused, beyond-desperate corporate owners, or by a besieged management team which has watched its own individual personal worth go up in so much digital vapor because they really don't know up from down in this revolutionary moment.

That should make all those recently laid-off SoCal newsies feel so much better.

(Per Romenesko)

Los Angeles Magazine speaks to five former editors of the LAT about what the paper was like then - and where it's going today. The overall picture is as grim as you'd expect: The good old days are good and dead and the industry is headed to hell in a handbasket. All that. Funny thing is, we remember some of these guys, and there were as many gripes during their tenures as now.

Shelby Coffey III for instance can wax poetic all day about the "tremendously stimulating time" he had as editor-in-chief from '89-'97 and all the bureaus and new editions that were added under his watch. But let's not forget that many of those bureaus were ghosts towns by '95 populated by quasi-legally employed "stringers."

Michael Parks seems to benefit the most from 20/20 hindsight, even offering his perspective of how he'd run the paper in today's climate: "You have to get more imaginative in your coverage choices. The Los Angeles Times should not run and hunt with The New York Times and The Washington Post. It's sui generis. It needs to be reported, written, and edited for the people of Southern California." He doesn't mention any other innovative ways to increase the paper's funding. We're guessing that's a sore subject.

continued...

It's Tues., time to worship and justify your new faith to your friends and family.

In a word: No. But thanks for asking.

How's this for a wedding present: Jennifer Bush writes her first column for the OC Register under her new married name, Jennifer Meyer, only to announce that it's the last column she'll ever write for the paper.

After eight years, Jennifer is packing it in... except that she doesn't give the impression that it was her decision. Jennifer doesn't spell it out, but the fact that her announcement comes 11 paragraphs into her obviously prepared-before-she-got-the-news column about gift registry options for home improvement stores, it seems that OCR gave the bride her "something new": a pink slip.

Classy.

Former New York Times correspondent Sharon Waxman sent us an e-mail to let us know that she's at the NewTools 2008 conference in Sunnyvale, and she's getting jazzed about all the cool gadgets that will eventually replace paid, trained reporters with "citizen journalists."

Pardon us, if don't feel quite as thrilled. Even as "New Media" types, we can't get too excited about "democracy and widgets, citizen journalism and Twitter, sputtering newspapers and algorithms."

Waxman seems to sense our gloom, adding, "At a very popular discussion group the question was: 'Who's gonna pay the journalists?' An excellent question."

It is an excellent question. Getting more excellent by the day.

It's about time this election year got riveting.