Patrick Best, who spent four years as CL's advertising director before starting rival publication The Sunday Paper, told Atlanta Magazine's Steve Fennessy last week he's willing to pay Ben Eason $1 million for Creative Loafing (Atlanta). Fennessy notes that it is unclear whether the purchase would even be possible, given CL's Chapter 11 status, but Best says "it's not unusual for businesses that are in bankruptcy to sell off pieces of their company in order to raise capital." MORE on Creative Loafing: Former senior editor (and current shareholder) John Sugg writes about CL's "death spiral," and Creative Loafing's Mara Shalhoup responds. And departing senior writer Andisheh Nouraee discusses why he is leaving with Atlanta Progressive News.
"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."
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."
Steven Emerson, who promotes himself as an investigative reporter with special knowledge of radical Islamic terrorists, has abandoned his four-year-old libel suit against the Weekly Planet and former Editor John Sugg. In a 1998 article, Sugg, now a senior editor at Creative Loafing (Atlanta), questioned Emerson's assertions about terrorist plots against him. Emerson sued, saying the articles defamed him. "Emerson never had a case," Planet Publisher Ben Eason says.
"Because I am most decidedly not a politician, I am best qualified for political office," says John Sugg, senior editor, Creative Loafing Atlanta, in announcing his candidacy for the 7th Congressional District. Sugg, who is running a write-in campaign as a Whig, says fellow journalists shouldn't question his political activism. "Your bosses have neutered real journalism by creating the cult of objectivity -- passionless journalism that is beholden to the status quo." Sugg is challenging "ho-hum" Democrat Mike Berlon and John Linder, "a water-carrier for the most corrupt elements of corporate America," he writes in his "Fishwrapper" column.
"Can you trust an alternative newspaper over 30?" Creative Loafing Atlanta's Senior Editor John Sugg asks. Well, yes and no. In a column published in Weekly Planet Tampa, Sugg's old stomping ground, he says alt-weeklies may be greying and corporate but they're still kicking the dailies' butts. Mainstream media have "dumbed themselves down to the point of imbecility," Sugg says. "Maybe now the alternative press will stand and achieve its true greatness, revealing what the powerful don't want revealed." If they don't, Sugg's hoping some firebrand now in high school is waiting in the wings to create the next underground press.
A major international espionage saga is unfolding across the United States. It's been hush-hush so far, largely because the implications could be a major embarrassment for the government. The spy story is even more touchy because it isn't Saddam, Fidel, Osama or even what passes nowadays for the KGB spying on America -- but our "friend" in the war against "evil," Israel. Creative Loafing last week obtained a copy of the 60-page Drug Enforcement Agency report that provides the basis of the allegations, and CL's John Sugg writes the story in his Fishwrapper column.
