Craig Newmark of Craigslist is over at that LA Times talking about the only thing any media people are talking about these days: the future of newspapers and whether there is one. Newmark seems to hew to the increasingly popular school of thought that the future of newspapers is local. But he also revealed this little interesting tidbit: he recently became a first-time subscriber to the New York Times! Apparently it all had to do with a mysterious woman named Wendy.

And basically, what I'm hearing from them is, and what I'm seeing too -- I was on a panel with Dean Singleton -- what people seem to want are a few sources of national news overall and then a lot of very local stuff, because now and then we do care about really big issues, and that's important, and for that reason people do want national newspapers in some form. And that's why I recently, for the first time ever, subscribed to the New York Times. If you're ever talking to Arthur Sulzberger, tell him you've heard about the mysterious Wendy who convinced me to subscribe to the Times. It's a running joke.