Communications to Power Knowledge
About This Episode
Craig Newmark calls himself an “old-school nerd.” The way he frames his work is simple and modest: “doing what I can to support the people who fight to protect the values that America aspires to: fairness, opportunity, and respect.”
His work is, at its core, about connection. In fact, many of his efforts today in philanthropy stem from lessons clearly learned in his earlier outings. As founder of craigslist.com, he brought people together in an unprecedented fashion, paving the way for communities of exchange that still thrive to this day.
Through Craig Newmark Philanthropies, he’s become an outspoken advocate for trustworthy journalism, voting rights and access, countering efforts to destabilize our country through disinformation, protecting local, community, and ethnic media, battling food insecurity and fighting for teachers. The list goes on and on and on.
He joins Carrie this week to discuss many of these efforts and how his experiences as a technologist, connector, and influencer positioned him as a perfect vessel for doing good in the world. He is among the most thoughtful and humble folks we have met, and we’re thrilled to bring him to the show this week.
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Carrie Fox:
Hi there, and welcome to the Mission Forward Podcast, where each week we bring you a thought-provoking and perspective-shifting conversation on the power of communications. I'm Carrie Fox, your host and CEO of Mission Partners, a social impact communications firm and certified B Corporation. And I'm especially excited about today's conversation with Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist, billionaire and philanthropist, who just announced on his 70th birthday, in fact, that he plans to give away his entire fortune through philanthropy. Craig is a curious and humble man with a remarkable generosity of spirit. He see things simply and acts thoughtfully and never ever takes himself too seriously. I fully enjoyed this conversation with Craig Newmark and I know you will too. So stay tuned and I'll see you on the other side.
Craig, it is such a treat to be with you today and to have you on the podcast. I have admired you and your work for many years, since I first met you in 2008, though certainly a lot has changed since then. When I first met you, I remember thinking that you had such great intentionality. You were thinking really big about challenges inside systems and the role that you could play in those challenges. And simply put, I think about you as among the most thoughtful and humble folks that I have ever met. So I'm glad to be in conversation with you today. Thanks for coming on the show.
Craig Newmark:
Hey, it's my pleasure. It's good to have a chance to get some ideas out where everyone can help everyone else out.
Carrie Fox:
I had mentioned to you on this season's show of Mission Forward, we're looking closer at the role that communications plays in moving missions forward, in bridging divides, in advancing a more just and equitable world. And I would like to get into some of the work that you've been doing in recent years, in how you have leveraged the investments you are making, how you are dropping down the ladder, as you say.
Before we get there though, I would love to learn a little more about your story. So at the most basic, dare I say, a guy named Craig from Morristown, New Jersey, who built a pretty popular list. So pick us up on the story wherever you'd like.
Craig Newmark:
My favorite part to start is Sunday School. Mr. and Mrs. Levin taught me kind of everything I would need to know about why I would be doing things. They taught me to treat people like I want to be treated. They taught me to try to know when enough is enough. And they also told me that I had already committed to fighting disinformation, as articulated in the 9th Commandment, false witness is bad. More specifically, false testimony from false witnesses is wrong. And I guess I wasn't fully activated into that mission until much later in time. In between, Mr. Shulskey in high school US History helped me understand the importance of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the observation that a trustworthy press is the immune system of democracy. I was activated.
This was all crystallized when Jeff Jarvis from CUNY Journalism told me to look at the NATO handbook on Russian information warfare. This was mid-2017. They point out that the Russians told us they were going to be attacking us in 2016 and they pretty much gave away how to prepare for that attack, but we didn't prepare and we're living with the consequences now.
But throughout all this, starting most visibly in high school, well, I'm the guy who wore a plastic pocket protector. I'm the guy who wore thick black classes taped together. Marginal social skills. And to the best of my knowledge, I'm nerd patient zero. And even now, what appear to be social skills on my part is actually a simulation. I can fake them for a while, but that's about it.
Carrie Fox:
I appreciate the way that you think about and look at the world and think about your responsibility in the world. And I don't know that everyone thinks as intentionally as you do about that responsibility that we have as individual humans walking day after day in this world.
Craig Newmark:
I appreciate that. But what looks like humility is more like, from my point of view, a minimal delusionality. That is humans who are really good at deluding ourselves, I just try to minimize that, unless for comedy purposes.
Carrie Fox:
Well then, I think more people should model it is all I'm saying. Nerd patient zero. I'll remember that.
So, Craig, let's talk about mis and disinformation. I have heard you talk about this importance of flooding the zone with facts. And I'd like to break that down a little bit and talk about how from those days at Craiglist to your investments you've made in democracy over the last many years, why do we now need to be flooding the zone with facts? What does that mean to you?
Craig Newmark:
Well, how it started, how it's going. Remember as a nerd, I'm oblivious to a lot of social convention. In 2010, Valerie Jarrett brought me into the West Wing, where I'm disappointed to say they do not walk and talk fast. I'm bitter about that. But what that really says is I watch too much TV.
Anyway, she informed me of some fundamentals, like no good deed goes unpunished. She helped me understand that my communications really sucked. And she was right about me personally and more broadly. So the deal is that I thought about that a little but it really didn't sink in for a couple of years. I mean, she had told me that no matter how much good you were doing, that if you can't talk about it well and clearly, bad actors will do things like trying to swift-boat you. And after a couple years it did sink in. At that point, I started getting trained in communications, started listening to a lot of people much better. And as a result, I suck far less when it comes to communications.
And right now I'm working with a lot of people trying to figure out how do you deal with disinformation? That is information warfare, used as part of hybrid warfare, used by people who wish us harm, who are attacking our country. Part of the solution is prebunking or trying to inoculate people against disinformation. And part of that is phrasing things so that it gives bad actors less of a hook to attack you, because again, you don't want to be swift-boated. And part of that also is to flood the zone, meaning repeat what's really going on, set the record straight, and ask everyone, everyone who's acting in goodwill and good conscience, to help you repeat the message so that you're flooding the zone for good. This is something that we're just experimenting to do, but it's necessary to do to defend the country against people who really do wish us harm.
Carrie Fox:
I've heard you say, and I agree with this, that there are more good actors than bad in the world, but the bad actors have such power and influence over how we think and what we see and the actions we take. And so in so much of my work that is tied, directly or indirectly, to democracy, so many times I hear people say, "The issue is just so big. How do we take this on?" And I know you are not taking this on alone. There are many other organizations who are thinking about this as well. How much of this work about prebunking and flooding the zone with facts feels like it is being coordinated with other philanthropists or government entities who are also trying to figure this out?
Craig Newmark:
To the best of my knowledge, people aren't talking about it. And what I've done simply is listen to a lot of people who know a lot more than I do trying to get together and figure out what's the consensus there for actively defending the country in this sense. And I've just started talking about it more loudly, it is an ongoing process which is happening in real time relative to this conversation. Today I might be sending out a message to my mailing list talking about National Cybersecurity Awareness Month, but also encouraging everyone to tweet and retweet and get the word out however they can and then to not stop. I'm probably not the right guy to lead on this, and so I'm asking other people to do so, people more effective than I am, because like the Batman says, "I'm not the nerd you want, but I'm the nerd you got."
Carrie Fox:
I'm just going to hold onto that for a minute. I appreciate that a lot. You are the nerd we want and need. I want to pick up on something that I hear you talking about, but we haven't used the word yet, and that is trust. There are so many questions right now on what do I trust? What information is trusted? What news outlets are trusted? How do you think about that? Whether that's who you trust or whether you think about the bigger issue of trust.
Craig Newmark:
I think about it a great deal, because a big part of the history of Craigslist is trust. Somebody wrote a book about Craigslist, Jessa Lingel, pointing out that Craigslist is one of the few remaining ungentrified sites on the net because it's kind of like a neighborhood that may not be all that shiny, but it works. People get along, people help each other out, because trust has evolved organically. And that's why I need to know how to do. I only need how to lead from the bottom, maybe to lead by example. I have no ability to lead from the top, lacking charisma entirely. And the deal is that I can behave in a trustworthy manner, inspire others to do so. However, I did fail, way back as I mentioned, in that when I had the chance to stand up and to communicate well. Instead I let myself get swift-boated, and that's a problem even today.
Carrie Fox:
I think the power of the messenger, the role of the message and the messenger, it all matters. Who we trust, why we trust them, who we feel connected to? So many of the issues that you're addressing related to democracy do, at the end of the day, come back to how we are connecting with one another, how we are listening and understanding one another as well. I see something in your background I want to bring into the conversation because I often think, I appreciate deeply what Wikipedia has built, and I often think Wikipedia is left out of a lot of the conversations and I'm not quite sure why. But when we think about flooding the zone with facts, and the platform that exists at Wikipedia on how a community of reporters and editors are fact-checking and cross-checking facts and ensuring information is getting out there. What's your take on the role that Wikipedia plays in the world we live in today?
Craig Newmark:
Wikipedia is where history is being recorded. Like Craigslist will help you get through the day, like it'll help you put food on the table, Wikipedia is for the ages, where our history is being recorded, and it's a great example of regular people working together to record things. It's an imperfect mechanism, getting better all the time. And people of goodwill, including myself, are working with them directly to do a lot better with things. For the most part, Wikipedia has resisted an awful lot of information warfare. More needs to be done, and I'm helping them with that, having quiet conversations. But Wikipedia is where facts go to live. Not perfect, but really good and getting better.
Carrie Fox:
A big distinction from the work you were doing with CUNY, and with the investments you've made in journalism and in local news, that there are distinct and important roles that each of your partnerships and investments seem to be making. And it comes back to what I was saying at the top, this really interesting through line to how you think about the ecosystem of what is required for a healthy democracy.
Craig Newmark:
I do think about that a lot. A trustworthy press is the immune system of democracy. And this means we need to hear from people who maybe we've never heard from before. I'm really fond of CUNY, the City University of New York, because in our country, it's been one of the most effective ways where people who grow up with no money can actually get good jobs, get into the middle class, which is a big deal. And sometimes if they're lucky, they can go beyond that. That's kind of my history, growing up with really no money, living in a neighborhood where junkyards were the norm, and I figure this is the topic of I've managed to climb up, I should help lots of other people climb up. So aside from the role of journalism and democracy, there's the idea of spreading power around.
Carrie Fox:
I see when I think about some of the investments you've made recently, you are thinking about how to invest in community informed and led journalism. How do you think about the totality of the work that you're doing now and how much of that is designed to address dynamics of power and where that power lives?
Craig Newmark:
Well, I guess my approach to protecting the country is to spread power along around so that everyone could play a part. For example, in cybersecurity, I talk about cyber civil defense, meaning that we all should be able to protect ourselves, our homes, our families, our businesses, and can help protect the country.
If somebody learns how to protect themselves, by the way, if they're good at it, that could lead to a really, really good career in professional level cybersecurity, where they can go to work for large enterprises or the government, helping everyone out. This includes working with veterans and military families, not only providing that training for them, but they've already helped protect the country on a personal level, I figure people, if you volunteer to maybe take a bullet protecting me, I should help out.
Possibly the only exception of my approach of protecting the country overall is my fondness for pigeon rescue, but that has to do with loving birds and having a sense of humor. I live in New York right now, but I still spend a little time in San Francisco, but the pigeons with whom I have personal relationships now are in New York.
Carrie Fox:
You mentioned something in passing in another interview you had done that I would love to have you talk a bit more about, your partnership with Consumer Reports. And if I heard correctly, is it a cybersecurity nutrition label? How are you thinking about this?
Craig Newmark:
Okay. I'm involved in partnerships with Consumer Reports, Global Cyber Alliance, Girls Who Code, Girl Scouts, lots of professional cybersecurity groups, including Homeland Security. The deal is to work with everyone for cyber civil defense and beyond.
Consumer Reports plays a vital role in this, continuing their traditional role in helping out regular people with new technology. They've been around 85 years and back then washing machines were high tech. In particular, Consumer Reports will help curate cybersecurity tools for us all, like we all need advice on password managers, we all need to know what file storage and sharing to trust, working with global cyber lines, we need to use DNS, domain name servers, that are protective that prevent us from accidentally landing on a phishing site. So Consumer Reports is really good at this and a lot more is coming from them. That includes cybersecurity nutrition labels at some point. We want to see that any internet connected product has been tested in good faith. For example, your car is going to be internet connected, and it would be comforting to know that it will be hard for a hacker to stop your car while you're driving down the freeway. So Consumer Reports is a much bigger player than anyone thought.
Carrie Fox:
If I think about, again, we mentioned this a few minutes ago, the types of organizations you are working with who have reach and influence and power, and who have trust, the trust of their readers in that case. But there are some really interesting through lines and connecting points to the larger need to address the issues of our democracy today. There are a lot of organizations who I know look very closely at you and at Craig Newmark Philanthropies and are saying, "Gosh, how do I get my organization on his radar?" Tell us a little bit more about how you decide where you're thinking about those investments.
Craig Newmark:
I have the advantage in philanthropy of not knowing what I'm doing. And sometimes my amateur approach will make professionals cringe. But this means I have to get personally involved with everything, and to stay in the trenches permanently, getting help where I need, and forming a network of people who will help out. So I've selected a number of areas where I feel people really do need a hand protecting the country, sharing power with them, again, consisting of sharing influence, communications, time, and cash. And at this point, between my own experience, but more importantly, getting help from people who know fields, that seems to work out pretty well. I do have to pay attention to my burn rate, because I have to decide how much cash I might have given my longevity, and in two months I hit a major milestone so I'm thinking about it a lot.
Carrie Fox:
We know capital is only one piece of the solution. And while philanthropy can do a lot to address the issues in society, philanthropy is not the only solution and we need a lot of things to be working well in order to see change on the issues that we face. What do you think needs to be working better, whether they're systems, or however you think about that, that can support what philanthropy is also doing?
Craig Newmark:
I think we need to work together in partnerships in any given philanthropic area, like preventing harassment, like cyber civil defense. And we need to work together to protect each other when bad actors go after people for doing the right thing. That's a difficult, tough, area but I'm beginning to work on it. There's some hope for it. I think I can make a dent in the problem, and then get people who are better at things like this, people who have social skills, together we can make things happen. And while it sounds like I'm having fun talking about my lack of social skills, again, I'm serious about it. I can fake social skills for a while, but probably for no more than 90 minutes at a time.
Carrie Fox:
The power of the message matters. How the message is delivered, how people hear it and experience it. Communications matters to move big ideas forward. But communications will only work when it is in partnership with clear, focused, ideas, values, commitment, that clearly you bring. Craig, as we wrap up, my last question for you is what has you feeling hopeful about the future? I know you address a lot of big societal issues and you've invested a lot in seeing change on those issues, but what has you feeling hopeful?
Craig Newmark:
I've observed that people are overwhelmingly good. Sometimes people can be fooled, but I think we're building the mechanisms by which we can help everyone acquire their own bit of power and to work together for the common good. I'm committed to this, but only as long as I live. After that, it's over, possibly not, but some other time I'll tell you about Hologram Craig.
Carrie Fox:
Certainly it will not be over because I think you've started something that is a model for so many others, and that, that's a legacy that folks will continue to pick up and carry forward.
Craig Newmark:
Hey, I really appreciate it. Thanks.
Carrie Fox:
Thanks, Craig. Thanks for being with us today.
And that brings us to the end of this episode of Mission Forward. Thanks for tuning in today. If you are stewing on what we discussed here today, or if you heard something that's going to stick with you, drop me a line at carrie@mission.partners, and let me know what's got you thinking. And if you have thoughts for where we should go in future shows, I would love to hear that too.
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