The founder of Craigslist is making a $20 million donation to one of New York City's journalism schools. In return, the City University of New York, or CUNY, will rename its Graduate School of Journalism after Craig Newmark.
Large donations like these are common, but some have pointed out Newmark's gift is a little ironic — Craigslist shook up the traditional classified ads market by allowing people to post online. It's often seen as one reason for the decline the newspaper industry, which relied on classified ad revenue. Newmark contends newspapers were losing money before Craigslist became popular.
But Newmark has a history of donating to journalistic causes. He's given millions of dollars to organizations such as Poynter and ProPublica. He also sits on the board of the Columbia Journalism Review.
Newmark said he made the donation to CUNY to help combat the public's eroding trust in news. The school says the money will go to recruiting more faculty and developing ways to regain the public's trust in media outlets.
