Jim Buckmaster, the chief executive of listings website Craigslist, speaks out over allegations that the site promoted prostitution by hosting an 'erotic services' category guardian.co.uk

Classified advertising website Craigslist has been the victim of a "witch-hunt" by self-interested politicians and the hypocritical media, according to the man in charge of the company.

Talking to the Guardian, chief executive Jim Buckmaster – who has run the website since 2000 – said that a recent string of claims that Craigslist encourages prostitution are part of a concerted attack by government officials and the press.

"We were just the subjects of a witch-hunt over a certain class of ads," he said. "We've had this recent episode where a grandstanding politician has decided to call us out as criminals in a way that was unfair, unreasonable and unlawful."

The individual in question? Henry McMaster, the attorney general of South Carolina, who threatened Craigslist with criminal investigation over the issue. Buckmaster responded by suing McMaster, and was granted a temporary restraining order last weekend to stop such threats happening again.

McMaster has not responded to the Guardian's request for comment, but in an earlier statement he said that the decision to sue by Craigslist was a victory for his office, because it showed that the website "is taking the matter seriously for the first time".

"More importantly, overnight they have removed the erotic services section from their website, as we asked them to do. And they are now taking responsibility for the content of their future advertisements. If they keep their word, this is a victory for law enforcement and for the people of South Carolina."

"Unfortunately, we had to inform them of possible state criminal violations concerning their past practices to produce a serious response. We trust they will now adhere to the higher standards they have promised. This office and the law enforcement agencies of South Carolina will continue to monitor the site to make certain that our laws are respected."

That encounter came after a period of concerted pressure on the San Francisco-based site: in March, police in Chicago claimed that the site was "the single largest source of prostitution" in America. Statements by a number of officials around the US were then exacerbated by the murder in Boston of a masseuse who advertised on the website – with the US press quickly dubbing the culprit the "Craigslist killer".

The site, which has repeatedly denied accusations that it encourages the sex trade, had previously tried to appease its detractors by agreeing to a series of changesin the way it runs its adult advertising section.

However, said Buckmaster, the real question was how the media and politicians have deflected attention away from their own activities – including the reliance that many local newspapers and magazines place on the same sort of ads that they decry on the internet.

"Journalistic media have no interest in reporting on far larger numbers, and far more graphic ads that exist in their own publications," he said. "They only have an interest in reporting such ads as they appear on the internet, and on Craigslist in particular."

This, he said, creates a self-reinforcing cycle that allows media organisations to redirect the focus away from their own reliance on adult advertising – indeed, in a post on the official Craigslist blog, Buckmaster outlined a number of sexually explicit and highly graphic listings from Village Voice, the publisher which owns alternative weekly newspapers across America.

"You get this vicious cycle going back and forth and in our case it's resulted in an unreasonable, unfair and hypocritical witch-hunt that's been playing out over the last couple of weeks," he said.

"This guy in South Carolina was hellbent on ignoring the law, ignoring facts, ignoring what everyone else in the law enforcement and legal communities were saying. Constructive criticism is wonderful, but slander, libel and defamation – that's where we're drawing the line."

The office of Thomas McMaster did not respond to request for comment. But internet rights campaigners said there was no basis in law for his initial attacks on the site.

"What the attorneys general were trying to do was build public pressure to try and get them to change it," said Matt Zimmerman, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

"The law was built to protect and shield people in the middle from this kind of harassment … instead you get these posturing, publicity-seeking lawsuits from officials that are completely contrary to the law."