Andisheh just pointed out to me that Sarah Palin told Katie Couric the other day that she reads Creative Loafing. I’m excited that a potential vice president “established her worldview” by reading our paper, as well as by reading dailies like the New York Times and Pravda.
— As the big debate approaches, is Sarah Palin a sign the apocalypse is upon us? Over at Politits, Dcup wonders how Johnny Mac feels when his running mate is more popular than he is.
— Seeing the latest Katie Couric interview is disturbing. And the lovely Sara at Going Through The Motions makes the case that she’s the more qualified “Sara” to be vice-president because she can actually name some rather well-known Supreme Court cases. Maybe the other Sarah should click through to the list, just to bone up on our country’s history.
— And who wants to bet that the magazines she wouldn’t admit to reading include the National Enquirer and US Weekly? Based on Palin’s lack of reading material, ATLmalcontent hopes that it all turns out to be a bad dream come January.
— Ms. Palin professes to have a gay friend, although his/her identity remains a mystery. But J-Mac did agree to give an interview to a gay magazine, although he dictated that the questions and answers be written out. Can’t ever be too careful, right Mr. “Straight Talk” Express? At Reporter-Cub, there’s links and some analysis.
— As Driftgrift notes, Cynthia McKinney is running for president. No, I’m not kidding. Really and truly. For the Green Party. And based on the video Driftgrift dug up, either it’s the end of the world as we know it or else Cynthia has turned completely psychotic. Dig those bugged-out eyes.
– Going local, Righteous Jackass ponders Karen Handel, who used op-ed space in the AJC to make a vow to protect the integrity of the November elections and yet fights to limit the number of people who actually can vote. It’s the idea of the elite democracy, he says, where only a few are smart enough to lead the rest of us.
— And, finally, going even more local, the fine ladies at Pecanne Log discuss CL’s bankruptcy and stake out their vision for what the paper should be in the future.
Former CL Senior Writer Steve Fennessy has a lengthy post on his Atlanta Magazine Cityscape blog about our recent Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing.
One of the most interesting bits:
[The filing] could also mean that [Creative Loafing Inc. CEO Ben] Eason has the company taken away from him. I asked if that possibility worried him. “It’s all speculative right now,” he said. “We’ve got 120 days to put a plan together. I think if we put a good plan together, I think the chances of me running the company are excellent.” (As it turns out, one of the major unsecured creditors to the company is Eason himself, who loaned the company $250,000.) Nor is Eason planning to sell the company. “That’s not something I want to do or something I’m interested in doing. As part of this filing, you have to think about what’s in the best interest for everybody. Right now, selling any one of the papers is not in our plans or something we think is in the best interest of the company.”
STOCK MARKET FRESH: Atlanta-based Arby’s completed a $2.2 billion buyout of fellow fast-foodies Wendy’s yesterday. The new company, Wendy’s/Arby’s Group, expects to add up to 100 new positions at its Atlanta headquarters.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, CEO Roland Smith says Wendy’s/Arby’s will focus on wooing older customers. Perhaps not coincidentally, stock in the company that makes Lipitor is up this morning.
FRESH START: Yesterday, the parent company of this blog filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, as well as lawsuits against three of its creditors for refusing to renegotiate the terms of the company’s loans.
CEO Ben Eason says the bankruptcy filing is not bad news, but instead characterizes the move as an opportunity to restructure the company’s debt under more favorable terms and make what he calls a fresh start.
A RAFT OF THEFTS: Georgia is reportedly the nation’s boat theft capital. I’m sure it sucks to have your boat stolen, but I’m having a hard time getting worked up about it.
BEAT IT: Former Blink182 drummer Travis Barker was released from an Augusta hospital yesterday. Barker was severely burned when the small plane he was traveling on crashed in South Carolina on September 19. Four people were killed in the accident.
HEADLINE OF THE DAY: For Many Americans, Fear and Distrust Run High
Really? I wonder why.
Well, maybe “world” is a bit of an exaggeration. But the New York media have chimed in!
Jerry Portwood, editor of New York Press and CL’s former assistant A&E editor, had this to say about our parent company filing for Chapter 11:
I once worked at Creative Loafing in Atlanta but left long before I had to witness its diminishing editorial or advertising power in the region.
Ouch.
Gawker.com, of all unlikely sources of commiseration, was more empathetic:
This may be just a foreshadowing of some painful days to come for alt-weeklies in general—we also hear the Village Voice may be on the verge of some layoffs.
The New York Observer took the silver-lining angle in response to news of the bankruptcy relief sought by Creative Loafing Inc., which also owns the Chicago Reader, Washington City Paper, and Creative Loafings in Charlotte, Tampa and Sarasota:
According to [City Paper Editor Erik] Wemple, it’s really not that big a deal—in fact, it might be a good thing—since, according to Creative Loafing C.E.O., Ben Eason (whom Mr. Wemple paraphrases), the fiing “would allow the six papers in the Creative Loafing portfolio to establish a greater online presence while the company reorganizes its operations.”
Creative Loafing Inc. — which owns alternative weekly newspapers in Chicago, Washington, Tampa, Charlotte and Sarasota, as well as Atlanta — today filed for bankruptcy protection. Prompting the move was a debt load of more than $40 million.
“The company owned owed more money than it can pay back right now,” CEO Ben Eason said in a conference call with company managers. The bankruptcy petition was filed in Tampa, where the company’s based, and was timed to preclude an interest payment that was owed lenders on Wednesday.
The company will ask federal bankruptcy Judge Caryl Delano to stay any attempt by creditors to liquidate the assets or take control of the company.
“We’re doing the right things,” Eason said. “This will give us a fresh start. It is a reorganization, not a liquidation. Everybody gets paid.”
The debt load was substantially increased last year when Creative Loafing purchased the Chicago Reader and the Washington City Paper. Since then, advertising revenues for the print editions of the papers has deteriorated, as they have for newspapers nationwide. Over the same period last year, revenues were down between 10 and 15 percent.
Among the largest unsecured creditors is Fayetteville Publishing Co., which prints the Atlanta paper and some of the other papers in the group. The Georgia Department of Labor, the Georgia Department of Revenue and the IRS are also among the creditors.
Creative Loafing was founded in 1972 by Debby Eason in Atlanta and later opened several other papers in the Southeast. Her son, Ben, who owned the Tampa paper, acquired the rest of the family newspapers in 2000.
I laid off two fine journalists Monday, and I must be honest with you that it seemed to me not the wisest business decision.
Like other media companies that have their roots in print, Creative Loafing finds itself in a harsh economic environment. Alt-weeklies like CL ought to be doing better than the big dailies, and I think we are. We’ve always operated more efficiently, and our readers are younger.
But we’re still in a tight spot. The economy’s down, so businesses are advertising less. Printing and transportation expenses have skyrocketed. And the bad thing about this particular downturn is that so much advertising is moving permanently from print to online, where it’s still difficult to make enough money. So management here, like at other papers, faces pressure to cut costs.
Any way you cut it, this is a difficult bind. The problem is that reducing the number of people writing stories makes it more difficult for us to build our audience online.
I guess that point of view is predictable coming from me, because I’m talking about our department. But, then again, everyone has their biases. The money guys at newspapers usually don’t come from an editorial background. It seems to me they find it easier than they should to cut the resources going into the creation of the very content we need to grow.
The journalists we lost Monday were two of our most experienced writers and editors. Senior editor Scott Freeman wrote recent cover stories on Brian Nichols and indigent defense, on a controversial alternative school in Atlanta, and on New Yorkers who hate living in Atlanta and visa-versa. He also ably edited our news section and mentored other writers.
Senior writer David Lee Simmons was for two years our arts and entertainment editor. More recently he’s written film reviews and cultural features, and he’s edited special sections. I hope you’ll still be able to see their bylines in the print edition and in Fresh Loaf but as occasional freelancers rather than full-time staff members.
Although it’s difficult to stomach these losses, I don’t want to give you the wrong impression: I’m still very confident that we’ll serve this community as well — or even better – than we ever have. We’re blessed with a corps of writers and editors who have the intelligence, passion and integrity to cover this city like no one else. But you’ll, of course, be the ultimate judge of that.
I don’t think Abbott and Costello were Creative Loafing employees back in the day. But at least they understood the confusion that our name can create:
In my time here, CL’s been mistaken for a bakers’ magazine and furniture periodical. When I was a reporter, I had a hard time explaining the name to, say, serious business or political sources in New York or Washington; they’d start cracking up and wouldn’t take me seriously. But Roger Brown, a former writer here who started the Blotter, used to tell the best story of anyone: He swears that a farmer he was interviewing heard the name and translated it in his mind to “the Casual Relaxer.”
AJC Publisher John Mellott attempted to calm the waters Thursday in an e-mail to staff members after a sister Cox family-owned paper announced big staff reductions earlier in the week. But Mellott also warned that more cuts are likely to hit the Journal-Constitution.
“The economic factors affecting our business have worsened,” Mellott wrote to the AJC staff. “The recession, the housing market downturn, as well as soaring newsprint and fuel costs have increased the urgency to reduce expenses. We will do so aggressively and in ways that make most sense for our market, our readers and our advertisers.”
Mellott’s e-mail followed an announcement that the Palm Beach Post, which along with the Atlanta paper is owned by Cox Newspapers, would reduce its workforce of 1,350 people by 300 — including a whopping 130 from the newsroom. The cuts are the latest in a slew of workforce reductions at dailies across the country.
“All Cox newspapers are carefully assessing their own markets and business models and will be taking the actions necessary to remain financially sound,” Mellott said in the e-mail.
Mellott also said a long-coming effort to reinvent the print paper, dubbed internally as “AJC 2.0” are “in the final prototyping stage.” While the daily’s brass have talked enthusiastically about “2.0,” many rank-and-file journalists are sweating what may be around the corner. They fear it will herald a new round of cuts.
Creative Loafing has named Luann Labedz as the new publisher in Atlanta.
The company and Dave Schmall, the paper’s publisher since 2006, have parted ways, Chief Operating Officer Kirk MacDonald told the Atlanta staff Thursday morning.
“It’s not broken here, so I want to build on that,” Labedz says. “There’s a great deal of energy here.”
As publisher, Labedz will be the top manager for Creative Loafing — Atlanta, reporting directly to MacDonald. While her primary duties relate to sales and marketing, Editor Ken Edelstein and managers of other departments report to her.
Labedz joins CL after 18 years at Gannett Co., where she began her career at The Coloradoan in Fort Collins. Since 2001, she’s worked for the company in Asheville, N.C., as director of market development at the Citizen-Times, that city’s daily. In both cities, she was responsible for niche publications, product development, strategy and advertiser partnerships. During her time at Gannett, the marketing team won numerous awards from the Colorado Press Association, the International Marketing Association, the Newspaper Association of America and Gannett’s Multi-Media MAC competition.
Prior to Gannett, the Buffalo, N.Y.-native worked eight years in sales at Burroughs (now Unisys Computers) in New York City. Labedz holds an MBA from SUNY-Buffalo and earned her undergraduate degree from Oswego College.
“I like the diversity here,” she says, when asked what she enjoys about Atlanta. “The amenities that are available across the board — the nightlife, entertainment, dining. The energy and excitement of the big city. I also like the youth — with that comes a vibrancy that’s very attractive.”
When asked if she’s been given a heads-up about the city’s biggest stain, she rolls her eyes and laughs. “Yes, everyone’s warned me about the traffic.”
Labedz starts on June 2 and says she welcomes readers’ input and ideas about the paper. “I’m very excited to be here,” she says. “This is a new beginning and start for me professionally.”
Creative Loafing Inc. is based in Tampa, Fla. It operates alternative weeklies in Charlotte, Chicago, Sarasota (Fla.), Tampa and Washington, D.C., as well as Atlanta.
