There's lots of garbage on the /newest page with no incentive to police it. A new post requires something like 5 flags within an hour to be flagged into non-existence.
Since flagging away bad content is as important for overall quality as upvoting good content, I think flaggers should receive a karma point for each time the post is flagged after they've done it.
While I'm here, maybe a few more people can chip in on the new page, being more liberal with upvotes than you would be on the homepage, and flagging some of the junk. Rad.