Yesterday’s entry concerning use of Craigslist to recruit people for newspaper delivery brought a surprising number of comments, and some background on the practice.

Here’s one version. According to this tale, the shift to Craigslist began several years ago at the Advertiser while under Gannett management. Up until then, delivery agents could request free in-house ads recruiting carriers. I recall those being pretty common.

But when classified revenue plunged and the classified section shrank, agents were suddenly told there wouldn’t be space for their job ads unless they paid regular classified rates like other customers. The response? The nominally independent elivery agents turned to Craigslist.

I was told Craigslist ads gets more immediate response, but the in-house classified ads result in more qualified applicants.

There may be other versions of this history floating around. We’ll see.