Teenagers were sold to men to rape on the Internet website that bears his name, Craigslist, and Craig Newmark's response was to defend his Cyberspace empire by falsely alleging journalists reporting it committed ethics violations. Now he’s reshaping journalism with millions of dollars in donations to news organizations, colleges and institutions.

THE FREE LANCE NEEDS YOUR DONATIONS TO SURVIVE. DONATE HERE.

Today is the first day of The Free Lance's Craig Newmark Watch. Its mission is to encourage media organizations funded by Newmark's philanthropy to account for Newmark's failure to protect people from sex-trafficking on Craigslist.

Teenagers were sold to men to rape on the Internet website that bears his name, Craigslist, and Newmark's response was to defend his Cyberspace empire by falsely alleging journalists reporting it committed ethics violations. Now he’s reshaping journalism with millions of dollars in donations to news organizations, colleges and institutions, The Free Lance reported yesterday.

Columbia University, the City University of New York, the Poynter Institute for Media Studies and New York City-based media outlets WNYC radio, Gothamist, The City and HellGatenyc are all at least partially funded by Newmark via his charity, Craig Newmark philanthropies.

Newmark donated a total of $81 million to various causes in 2022. He gave away enough money to make him one of the biggest philanthropists of 2022, according to The Philanthropy 50, a Who's Who list of top donors, compiled by the Chronicle of Philanthropy.  

Newmark purchased the right to rename the City of New York's Graduate School of Journalism the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism for $20 million in 2018. He also gave Columbia University $15 million to endow a professorship in his name to run the Craig Newmark Center for Journalism Ethics and Security in 2019. 

Newmark gave the Poynter Institute for Media Studies $1 million to fund a chair in journalism ethics in 2016 and another $5 million to establish the Craig Newmark Center for Ethics and Leadership in 2019. He joined with Facebook and other Tech Industry giants to create the $14 million News Integrity Initiative in 2017. 

He gave $2.5 million to WNYC to buy Gothamist, more than $2 million to local news blog TheCity.nyc since its 2019 start, gave ProPublica a $1 million in 2017, another $1 million in 2020 and now he's funding Hellgatenyc.com.

Yet, as detailed in The Pimp in the Newsroom, Newmark's never been held accountable to sex-trafficking victims who were, in essence, pimped on the website that bears his name, Craigslist. Not only that, when confronted with evidence people were being trafficked on Craigslist, Newmark's response was to defend his Cyberspace empire by falsely alleging CNN of an ethics violation. 

This is the man funding news reporting in America.

The Free Lance invited Newmark to share his side of the story, but so far he's ignored the invitation.

The Free Lance also invited comment from the seven news news groups and institutions of journalism named as being funded by Newmark to respond to the suggestion that their silence on Newmark past has been purchased by Newmark’s donations.

Only The City responded “We do not have a comment about this.”

The Free Lance hopes to change that with the Craig Newman Watch. 

If you have information you'd like to share about Craigslist or Newmark, email The Free Lance at thefreelancenews@proton.me

THE FREE LANCE NEEDS YOUR DONATIONS TO SURVIVE. DONATE HERE.