Mainstream media can’t call a spade a spade


Saturday’s been a good day to find great quotes. Here’s another.

“Big companies become risk-averse and are not willing to alienate power structures by calling a spade a spade, hence the lack of criticism that we saw in the run-up to the Iraq war. If that’s not the role of the fourth estate, I don’t know what is. When people write that because free classified is hurting newspapers, we are not going to have this force for democracy, well, when we really needed it, it hasn’t been there,”

— Jim Buckmaster, CEO of Craigslist in a Times Online piece.

If I were Michael Silence, I’d say “Ouch!”

(via craignewmark)