"This company has been my home for almost 13 years, I love it and own a tiny bit of it, so I won't disappear," the CL group senior editor, columnist, and shareholder says in announcing his retirement at the end of January. He says he'll "likely continue" writing his column, "in large part because our CEO, Ben Eason, and editor, Ken Edelstein, are guys who passionately care about Atlanta." Sugg plans on starting a think tank which will "look for radical, yet effective, alternatives to urban dilemmas."
"While it is easy to blame mean and nasty CEOs for trimming budgets, the fact is that our journalism, advertising and our content needs to be and are being re-conceived," Creative Loafing CEO Ben Eason says in a memo to employees leaked to Poynter's Jim Romenesko. In the memo, Eason tells his employees that most of the post-merger integration -- including staffing decisions -- of the Chicago Reader and Washington City Paper into the CL family is complete. "I'm very pleased with how the new company has come together," he says. "We are positioned well to take advantage of the future."
"Friday was a rough day at the Loaf, perhaps even rougher at our new brethren papers in Washington and Chicago," writes Creative Loafing (Atlanta) editor-in-chief Ken Edelstein. "In Atlanta, we laid off four sales people, a marketing assistant, a sales assistant and our wonderful assistant distribution manager." He adds that the six-paper company is going through the same sort of difficult transition that's hitting other media companies, before noting that his paper's online readership continues to grow. "How that audience growth translates into ad dollars is the business question that [CEO] Ben [Eason] and the folks on the sales side of our business are going to have to grapple with for a long time -- and continuously."
The Times columnist says that given all of the newspaper industry's woes, last week's Chicago Reader and Washington City Paper newsroom layoffs might not seem significant. But Carr, who was editor of the City Paper in the 1990s, thinks the cuts illustrate the larger issue of an industry-wide abandonment of investigative journalism. Creative Loafing CEO Ben Eason says that's not the case. "We are not trying to make any other statement here other than it is a competitive world out there and we are doing what we can to make sure we are putting out an excellent paper in the communities we serve," he tells the Times.
John Conroy, Harold Henderson, Tori Marlan and Steve Bogira were laid off this week by editor Alison True, Michael Miner writes on his News Bites blog. True tells the Chicago Tribune that, given the mandate to cut costs by her new bosses at Creative Loafing in August, it became difficult to afford their work. "The numbers are part of a deal that was structured a long time ago," she says. "Even if [CEO Ben Eason] were the most passionate journalist in the world, he wouldn't have the option of saying, 'I'll give you a little extra this year so this doesn't have to happen.' He's bound to his deal." Meanwhile, Fishbowl DC is reporting that five editorial staffers were laid off at the Reader's sister paper today: Washington City Paper writers Joe Eaton, Amanda S. Miller, Tim Carman and Jessica Gould, and editorial assistant Joe Dempsey, are all no longer with the paper.
CEO Ben Eason recently told the paper's distribution drivers that they would be terminated as salaried employees and made independent contractors following this week's issue, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. The change would result in both a drop in income and a loss of benefits, and the majority of the 20-plus drivers have thus far rejected the offer. "It's just not economically viable anymore, and I don't know of any other alternative paper that works that way now," says Eason, who indicated if the stalemate couldn't be resolved, he would bring on new drivers. There have also been staff changes, according to the Sun-Times. Advertising director Don Humbertson and art director Sheila Sachs, both longtime Reader employees, have left the paper. "I don't want people to think that because we were purchased that folks have come in and made decisions to act against our best interests," publisher Michael Crystal tells the Chicago Tribune. "It's very simple for people to point fingers at new ownership and all that kind of thing. We're just trying to wade through this in a way that makes sense."
Responding to fears that out-of-town owners will change the ethos of the Chicago Reader and Washington City Paper, Ben Eason tells the St. Petersburg Times that he doesn't want to make any major changes, because the papers "are already at the top of their game." He says his goal with the new six-paper chain is to create "a national platform, national quality technology, that features local content." Creative Loafing also doesn't "have a mandate to share editorial," according to Eason. "If you put your efficiency hat on, could one film reviewer do the same job for everybody? Perhaps, but that connection to film and the local community is something I'm proud of."
The columnist and Creative Loafing shareholder says his company's acquisition of the Chicago Reader and Washington City Paper is neither an "idealistic foray" nor a "hostile takeover of independent papers." The way Sugg sees it, the two papers were caught up in a "broader crisis in the publishing business" that their former owners weren't nimble enough to navigate. He also defends CEO Ben Eason, who hasn't exactly been welcomed with open arms in Chicago and Washington. "He believes alt-weeklies can help readers strengthen their communities," says Suggs. "Eason loves to see controversy in his newspapers. He admits mistakes, takes risks and has an ambitious vision for new media. His lieutenants often disagree with him; he listens ... sometimes."
CEO Ben Eason tells Editor & Publisher he's not sure if the now-six paper chain will continue to use the Alternative Weekly Network (AWN) for national ad sales or switch over to the competing Ruxton Group, which currently handles ad sales for the Chicago Reader and Washington City Paper. "We have been longtime AWN folks," he says. Ruxton, which was founded by the Reader, is now owned by Village Voice Media. Eason says figuring this out is one of his top priorities. He also tells E&P that strength in the national ad market is a key aspect of this week's deal. "Now with Chicago and D.C., all of the sudden you have enough critical mass and it becomes a go-to place for ad agencies on Madison Avenue," he says.
The Reader's Michael Miner reports that Ben Eason didn't focus on editorial matters in Wednesday's meeting, but rather on "web opportunities, regaining ground lost to Craiglist in classified advertising, and the efficiencies of centralizing the design work in Atlanta," a change Miner notes "is likely to cost a dozen or so Reader employees their jobs." After the meeting, when Miner asked Eason about editorial, he said "it's everything" -- but Miner isn't so sure that's Creative Loafing's approach. He thinks the Creative Loafing papers' design "doesn't respect the stories it ought to serve. If the centralized design staff makes this the look of the Reader ... I think readers will judge it as antithetical to what they've understood the Reader to be." According to Miner, Creative Loafing will turn the Reader into a one-section tabloid, a change the old owners were also planning.
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