Whistling past the graveyard?

From Mark Potts, who blogs at Recovering Journalist, comes a fantastic collection of quotes from the CEO of CareerBuilder, the job-listings site that is co-owned by a number of newspaper chains including McClatchy (the quotes come from a synopsis of the CEO’s comments at PaidContent). I know that CEOs are paid to talk tough and dismiss their competition, but this is a little much:

“I don’t think there’s a free model in the future… If CraigsList were trying to manage 2 million jobs and 22 million job seekers, it would be very difficult for them to match those two sides up. Quality is like beauty; it’s in the eye of the beholder.

Almost anyone who comes to our site is a quality applicant. It takes 200 engineers who are focused 24/7 on matching those 22 million applicants with the right employer. You don’t get that in a free business. It doesn’t impact our business today.”

Keep on whistling, friend.