Craigslist’s Craig Newmark’s conversation with Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales is highly informative, entertaining, insightful (Newspapers are community services, for instance).

[UPDATE: Newmark’s remarks.]

Ruby S. had an opportunity to ask Newmark about a comment from today’s NPR discussion of the Knight/Ridder-McClatchey media merger. A guest claimed Newmark’s Craig’s List was responsible. Newmark laughed and said it had more to do with the Penny Trader and Monster.com than his service. He continued speaking about the decline of traditional journalism in big media – and the rise of citizen journalists in the blogoverse. Ruby pointed out that local UNC journalism Prof. Phil Meyer thought blogs reach was restricted to the national level instead of understanding that local reporting is enhanced by local blogs.

Funny comment considering how Ruby’s local ‘blog OrangePolitics frequently “reports” stories not covered by our local news, fills in the gaps in stories, corrects factual errors in stories and even occassionally scoops the local press.

I’m upgrading my SxSWi Day 1.1.1 to Day 1.2 because of dog lover Newmark’s wit and verve.