"40 years ... won more than 1,400 national writing awards"
35 awards a year on average, and I thought Hollywood was giving themselves too many awards. Sheesh, over compensating much.
Sorry when you are doing 133,000 sex ads per month, and that may be a main source of income, is your primary job being a pimp not a journalist? And that does color and biases what stories you publish.
They are advertising something illegal, I don't think it should be illegal, but it is.

is your primary job being a pimp not a journalist?

Methinks you do not know what a pimp is, or what the pimp's function is.

Circling back to the title, investigative reporting is an awful lot like actual work. And is expensive.

Even tho the print media gets government subsidies in the form of legal notices in the classified section. Which can be used as leverage if a newspaper is actually investigating government shenanigans. Be a terrible shame if we pulled our legal notices and published them in another paper.

Locally, my newspaper places good relations with the elected leadership over serving their readership, so they hum the party tune just to stay friendly. They publish barely regurgitated city and county press releases as "news".

And then they wonder why their readership is less than 20K subscribers in a city 10x that size. Oh, and is a state capitol.

They didn't "give themselves" awards. They won the alt weekly assn. awards consistently -- beating out other papers across the country -- and won Pulitzers, LA Press Club Awards (which I've won, beating other LA journalists), along with other cities' press club awards.

I R A got it exactly right on all of this.

Also, absurdly, per Joe J comment, what Backpage did was FREE sex workers from pimps. They could be independent, get work on their own, and look out for each other.

There's a link to Maggie McNeill's Reason piece above, and she talks about how people looking to hire a sex worker need to give references -- like another sex worker from Backpage.

Joe, maybe you have some issue with sex or sex workers, but it's really none of your business if people want to buy or sell sex work, any more than if they want to buy and sell accounting work.

All Lacey required of his reporters is that they care about the story in an obsessive way (not his exact words, but that's basically the deal). He recently searched out all of his investigative reporters and sent them all $5,000 (maybe a year or two ago). Also, when an employee was in the hospital and her health care hadn't vested yet, he paid all her hospital bills.

Lacey is one of the good guys, an Irish bar fighter who will go to jail (and has) for what's right, including publishing Joe Arpaio's abuses and fighting for the First Amendment. I love the fuck out of the guy.

This is wonderful.

"pig-placed"

Now that we have WiFi, we can take the magic bus anywhere and strike at the heart of the patriarchal puritan capitalist empire with scathing sarcasm and revolutionary wit!

It's a 1967 with the pop-top camper kit, last of the split-windows, and I'd like to send waves of gratitude to Peace Rainbow, who did a wonderful job of painting it with peace symbols and rainbows.

...but it's really none of your business if people want to buy or sell sex work, any more than if they want to buy and sell accounting work. ~ Amy Alkon at December 9, 2018 8:17 AM

So, there's no difference between doing someone's taxes and doing someone? And conducting either activity in your neighborhood will have no effect on the safety, the housing values, or the general feel of you neighborhood? You would have no problem with a brothel opening down the street from your place? Next door?

While my mostly-libertarian nature wants everyone to be free to conduct whatever business they want to conduct wherever they want to conduct it, there are differences. There are costs to certain types of businesses and many of those costs are going to be borne by the surrounding residents. Pretending otherwise is disingenuous.

Perhaps in some idyllic world having a prostitute living next door would not result in any disruptions - no awkward encounters with customers in the hallway, no wondering where your teenaged son is at 2am, no wondering if your pre-teen daughter now sees prostitution as a viable and profitable career choice - but in this world it will.

Not to mention parking. Unless said brothel has sufficient dedicated parking spaces, there are gonna be issues.

I much preferred it when the FBI could scout Craigslist and Backpage for trafficking and prostitution, although I am for legalization.

FOSTA has affected dating sites, particularly those for married couples. The FBI has been probing those, afraid that someone will use those sites for prostitution.

What are the lines? It seems to get very gray to me. It’s okay to pay for a massage, but only if one person is fully dressed and the genitalia are avoided. It’s okay to pay for dinner and a concert but not okay to take the same amount of money and go to a modest restaurant and give the rest to the woman that is struggling to make ends meet. It is legal to pay to take someone to spend time with you eating dinner, reading, going on a cruise but not for sex.

It’s legal to marry for money and take half of marital earnings but it’s not okay to pay for a night of sex, which would be cheaper and less complicated. Don’t try to tell me that Melania is in her marriage for love. Let’s just punish the poor women that can’t afford plastic surgery and don’t have the resources to okay the long game and use marriage instead prostitution.

When I was in college,there was a whore house in the college town. I knew where it was, but had no money and no urge to do that. But I have no problem with it. It is safer for the girls than being on the street--which is very dangerous. It is safer for the johns. There are men who cannot find a wife.

There are women who date for the free dinners, and this is ok? There are people who assume that a fancy date means sex will follow, and this is ok. Prostitution was legal everywhere at least through WWII (not sure when it was squashed exactly). The idea that just because we don't approve of sex for money doesn't mean we are doing the women a favor by making them criminals. Maybe they enjoy it. Maybe they can't find other work. None of my business.

"what the pimp's function is"
One of the main functions of a pimp is Advertising. For which they get paid . It's why according to studies, sex workers with pimps, have more take home pay after paying a pimp than those who don't use one.
And what does Backpage do for the sex workers: Advertising. For which they get paid. 133,000 paying advertisers do have an influence.

It’s legal to marry for money and take half of marital earnings but it’s not okay to pay for a night of sex, which would be cheaper and less complicated.

It actually is okay to pay for a night of sex as long as you don't do it in a straightforward manner. It's called dating.

Of course, religious conservatives who condemn prostitution condemn any kind of sex outside marriage so, if they had their way, they'd make sex during dating illegal too.

We've made progress in a couple areas of civil liberties the past few years: legalization of pot in a number of states (including my state of Washington) and the Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, establishing same-sex marriage throughout the United States and its territories.

But I don't ever think we're going to make the same kind of progress when it comes to allowing consenting adults to openly and directly have sex for money. Because not only do you have the bloc of religious conservatives against it, you've also got people on both the right and left who oppose it, largely because of the "ick" factor (these people almost inevitably ask "would you want your daughter to be a prostitute?") It's not religious puritanism but it's a form of puritanism nevertheless. Anyway, the "ick" folks allied with the "God hates sex outside of marriage" folks create a force that's too powerful for pragmatists and staunch civil libertarians (on the left and right) to overcome.

"Don’t try to tell me that Melania is in her marriage for love."

OK. And I won't tell you you married for it, or will marry for it, either. I can show you people who married a sailor to get out of town - you're not claiming higher ground so much as infringing on Crid's territory by insisting you know about people you've only seen on TV and antisocial media.

Meanwhile, no one is going to start being "reasonable" - in quotes because nobody means the same thing - about sex; it's more important than murder, and everything else besides.

Half of them would flip out about this, too.

I didn't know that Eric Holder and Obama were religious conservatives JD. They directed the FBI and other branches of government at this. Holder even pushed banks to refuse business to porn workers. As it was put they were too big of a risk as customers. The risk to the bank being getting audited by the federal government over and over again.

When I was in college,there was a whore house in the college town. I knew where it was, but had no money and no urge to do that. But I have no problem with it. It is safer for the girls than being on the street--which is very dangerous. It is safer for the johns. There are men who cannot find a wife. ~ cc at December 9, 2018 1:32 PM

When you were in college, you probably were not worried about property values or raising your children in that neighborhood.

As an adult, a parent, and a property owner, I doubt you would be as cavalier if a whorehouse opened down the street from you tomorrow. Nor, I'm willing to bet, would you want your daughter to go to work in it.

> So, there's no difference between
> doing someone's taxes and doing
> someone?

I love nailing this point, especially from behind: Then which of your cousins should have gone into sex work instead of accounting work?

"some escort websites...[have moved overseas, safely out of the reach of US busybodies,]"

Yep, and absolutely nobody could have predicted that that would happen, right? Note that the federal government is now throwing in the towel on being able to ban Internet sports gambling, because of the same problem. If the government can't shut down overseas spammers who send out millions of spam emails per day, they have no hope of stopping this sort of thing.

"Perhaps in some idyllic world having a prostitute living next door would not result in any disruptions - no awkward encounters with customers in the hallway, no wondering where your teenaged son is at 2am, no wondering if your pre-teen daughter now sees prostitution as a viable and profitable career choice - but in this world it will."

Regardless of whatever other arguments may be made for or against prostitution, I don't find this one persuasive. I assume that if prostitution were to be legalized, it would be subject to zoning regulations, just like any other business.

"Then which of your cousins should have gone into sex work instead of accounting work?"

Everybody wants to ride the car, but nobody wants to wax it. Porn is the biggest business in the USA. Join others in condemning those nasty sluts in Hustler while eagerly reaching for the latest copy of Cosmopolitan, promising you "Deeper Sex!"

There are women who date for the free dinners, and this is ok? There are people who assume that a fancy date means sex will follow, and this is ok.
_________________________________________________

I don't quite follow. BOTH are ok - if, that is, each situation exists by mutual agreement. Some men supposedly like to pay for everything because it makes them feel rich. (That reminds me of what sex humorist Tom Carey said about men and cocaine - that the message was that "I have lots of money and I like to spend it foolishly" and that many women just love to hear that.)

The trick, of course, is making sure that either situation IS due to a mutual agreement. It's great if that confirmation can be made nonverbally - but most of the time, I suspect, it's a mistake to assume you're on the same page. After all, most(?) men are not happy to pay for three or more dinners in a row without a promise of sex by then. But most(?) women are not eager to have sex on the first date either - and plenty want, reasonably, some proof that the man has been to the doctor lately and has proof that he's clean. Which could take months if he doesn't feel like going to the doctor.

It is, however, bad manners to let someone spend a lot of money on you as a date when you have no intention of reciprocating on that financial level. (Just say "oh, I couldn't possibly accept that.") Unless, again, the two of you agree that only one of you will be paying the bills in the entire "relationship."

And speaking of the need to teach young people about "give and take" in general, not just in dating situations:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1982/01/26/the-partys-over/7ddb403b-e2c2-4715-8f50-914b2a632fa7/?utm_term=.df933316e3f8

So, there's no difference between doing someone's taxes and doing someone?

For neighborhood effects, no, there really isn't. If you do either one in the privacy of your home, for clients who found you online or from print ads, who visit one at a time, then no one should be bothered. But if your home business has half a dozen employees and as many customers parking on the street at one time, that is a problem, whether the business is a branch of H&R Block or the Chicken Ranch.

For neighborhood effects, no, there really isn't. If you do either one in the privacy of your home, for clients who found you online or from print ads, who visit one at a time, then no one should be bothered. But if your home business has half a dozen employees and as many customers parking on the street at one time, that is a problem, whether the business is a branch of H&R Block or the Chicken Ranch. ~ Rex Little at December 10, 2018 4:53 PM

Um, no.

Property values will not show the same shift with the opening of a Chicken Ranch vs. the opening of an H&R Block.

Nor will residents be worried to the same degree about the effect of having accountants in the neighborhood like they might with having prostitutes (although, maybe they should).

Teenaged boys in the neighborhood are unlikely to save up their money and sneak off for a tax preparation.

And parents of teenaged girls in the neighborhood will worry much less about the local business that influences their girls to become CPAs than than the one that influences them to become prostitutes.

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I assume that if prostitution were to be legalized, it would be subject to zoning regulations, just like any other business. ~ Cousin Dave at December 10, 2018 8:42 AM

Assume away. For all the good it will do, it probably will be subject to zoning regulations, and licensure ones, too.

Zoning won't stop someone from conducting a business, legal or otherwise, from their house. Just ask the teenaged independent pharmaceutical representative next door.

Likewise, licensure requirements can only do so much. Just ask the unlicensed hair braider in the corner house.

Your faith in the effectiveness of rules to regulate human behavior is misplaced.

My grandfather was the town manager for a medium-sized town in the South. An influential neighbor dropped by one afternoon in a panic. He had a Northern businessman coming to his house to discuss a deal and had no alcohol with which to entertain his guest, the town being dry then.

My grandfather told him not to worry, he'd bring something over later. He arrived at the neighbor's house only a short time later. Amazed at the quickness of the delivery, the neighbor inquired about the location of the stash. My grandfather refused to tell him where he got the illicit booze, but did tell him it was acquired on the way from his house to the neighbors.

The neighbor was shocked and angry that booze was available in his neighborhood, despite being a customer. And there were laws against the distribution and consumption of booze at the time. It was okay for another neighborhood, but not his.

The neighbor down the street from me in high school was a CPA. During tax season, he ran a tax preparation business from his house. The rest of the year, he was a marginally-employed functional alcoholic. Our neighborhood was not zoned for business.

So, when they rezone your neighborhood because the mayor and his influential friends don't want brothels in their neighborhood, but want them available, what are you gonna do?

When the neighbor decides to become a prostitute and entertain clients in her house, what are you gonna do?

Zoning works with businesses that need a public front, signage, and foot traffic; for ones that leave a footprint. For those that can operate in shadows or without a public front, it can prove ineffective.