Opinions Free Papers are Nothing But Trash By Adam Gaumont, The Gateway (University of Alberta) eee EDMONTON (CUP) — It used to be that in autumn the only thing you could find on the ground were red maple leafs. Now you can find the other parts of the tree, processed of course, in the form of Metros, Rush Hours and 24 Hours littering our buses and sidewalks. Now, far be it from me to harp on free news publications, as I am the editor of one myself and more than a few issues of the Gateway find their way to the recycling bin each week. But there’s a difference between something that’s costless and something that’s valueless. As anyone who’s read one of the commuter dailies can attest, these publications undoubtedly fall into the latter category. In fact the only redeeming quality about them is that they’re free, but at what cost? Newspapers and magazines get most of their revenue through advertising. The key distinction here is daily news publications happen to have some advertising content in them. Commuter rags are advertisements that happen to have some news content in them. How else do you explain that people will plug in a loonie or two to get a copy of the Edmonton Journal, Globe and Mail, or National Post on any given morning, but they’ ll do everything they can to dodge those Metro hawkers at the same time? Watch one of those distribution agents from a commuter “In fact the only redeeming quality about free papers is that they’re free, but at what cost?” daily try to hand out copies of their publication to passers-by and see how many people actually take one. Of that group, watch how many actually do more with it than glance at the cover once and chuck it to the ground. I’m no statistician, but when you have to pay people to hand out something people can get for free themselves—some of which are empty- handed, knowledge-hungry students too busy and poor to pay for a subscription or read any real newspaper—and they still won’t take your product, the commuter rag industry is doomed to fail. But they won’t go down without a fight, at least not if the advertisers have anything to say about it, but it’s a losing battle. Being free of charge hardly motivates people to pick up these things. Not when radio, television, and internet make up most of the free news content in our culture. This has been proven in a deliciously ironic fashion by dose.ca, the online remnant of the once equally ubiquitous Dose newspaper. So please, if you’re ogling the latest car crash in 24 Hours or devouring some celebrity gossip in Rush Hour, please have the decency not to jettison it onto the floor of the bus afterwards. Otherwise before you know it, you won’t be able to see the forest for the landfills. Crazy for By Pamela Findling S © you’ve heard people talking about “Craig’s list,” and while you’ve kind of figured out it’s probably something pretty cool, you don’t know much more than that. But now that everyone seems to know about Craigslist except for you, you’re too embarrassed to admit your ignorance and, instead, you silently stare at the empty living room in your apartment wondering how to get a cheap couch to fill the void. Craigslist is an online virtual garage sale where you can buy, sell, trade, or find furniture, vehicles, jobs, dates, apartments, Cabbage Patch Kids, Hot Wheels, or pretty much anything your little heart desires (ok, maybe not everything. | doubt Angelina Jolie is available on craigslist, except maybe in poster form. And I’m not implying you can buy dates on Craigslist. Well, maybe you can but that’s another article). To get started, go to www.vancouver. craigslist.org. Select the category you’re interested in and voila! A list of ads that fall into your category of interest will appear, sorted by date for easy reference. You can read the ads that interest you and follow the instructions contained in the ad to contact the people who posted them. However, if you find the huge list of categories daunting and you know exactly what you’re looking for, you can just Google it instead. This is the approach I usually use when searching Craigslist. For example, Google “Vancouver writing jobs Craigslist” and several hits will be returned to you. Interestingly enough, “Hot Wheels Vancouver Craigslist” also returns several hits. “Angelina Jolie Vancouver Craigslist” does not. OK, so what about if you want to sell something? What do you need to do then? Again, start by going to www. vancouver.craigslist.org. Click on “post Craigslist to classifieds” in the top, left-hand corner of the screen. From there, it’s just a matter of following the prompts. You’ll be asked what kind of posting it is, if you agree to abide by the required terms, and what information you want posted in your ad. Here’s where you need to be careful. Generally, it is not a good idea to put your phone number or address in your posting. Instead, take advantage of the site’s default option of having users reply to an anonymous email address that will get directed to their legitimate email address that you specify. This helps protect your privacy and ensures spammers don’t end up deluging your mailbox with unwanted emails promising to improve the size of your anatomy. Here are a few safety tips to keep in mind when using Craigslist: ¢ Meetina public place when you decide to exchange goods with a person. ¢ Make sure someone is home ___ with you if you must have to pick something up or dro