Okay, everyone get worked up again
2 Oct
I read Steve Fennessey’s Atlanta Magazine post on the Creative Loafing bankruptcy that everyone’s talking about, and now my question is: WHO THE HELL DOES BEN EASON THINK HE IS, ANYWAY?
“I’ll use [CL staff writer] Andisheh Nouraee as an example. I love what the guy writes. But I’m also interested in going, ‘What are you looking at in the morning, what’s cracking you up, what kind of crazy shit are you pulling off the web?’ I want to know that. So what’s more valuable? The links that Andisheh has or the stories that he’s writing?”
THE STORIES THAT HE’S WRITING THE STORIES THAT HE’S WRITING THE STORIES THAT HE’S WRITING!!!!! I mean, really? That’s a question? CL CEO Eason thinks the values of hilarious links and real journalism are subjective and/or comparable? Especially in the context of an alternative weekly that runs stories and takes angles not picked up by the mainstream media? Links come cheap, really cheap. Cheap as in no money. On the other hand, you cannot get some guy to write a lengthy piece for free on jack shacks. Well, maybe you can. But he’ll want to be reimbursed for his receipts at least.
This makes me a little nervous now about all the curiously optimistic “It’s no big deal! Don’t worry about us! We’ll be better than ever!” responses coming from CL regarding their bankruptcy. I don’t see any kind of real strategy emerging beyond “greater online presence!”, and according to Fennessey, Eason has a history of making changes around his publications based more on whims and flash trends than any sort of real analysis of problems and forecasting solutions. But why can’t Creative Loafing be the model for a periodical that actually transitions gracefully from print to online? I think with Fresh Loaf and Chad Radford’s gossipy Crib Notes posts, they might be on their way, but they have to retain the long-form reporting and good research. The biggest challenge, like in everything, is paying for it all.
My biggest complaint about Creative Loafing has always been that it doesn’t cover enough Atlanta-specific news, especially hyper-news at the neighborhood level. Now I see my dream drifting further out of reach. And I know everyone there is overworked and overextended, but I don’t think aggregating and outsourcing is the answer. And please don’t dangle a million stupid teasers crammed into one homepage in front of us (cf. AJC.com) in the desperate hopes that we’ll just click on something, anything.
See also Gawker’s take: “How Not To Turn Alt-Weeklies Into Crappy Blog Clones.“
Previously: Creative Loafing files for bankruptcy
Tags: alt-weeklies, bankruptcy, ben eason, creative loafing
I hope they read your post here closely.
Who in thee hell are you to call someone else “gossipy?”
CL CEO Eason thinks the values of hilarious links and real journalism are subjective and/or comparable?
Sad to say but the click through rates of, say, The Onion, compared with CL proves this. Of course, I don’t mean ‘valuable’ in a culturally important sense but ‘valuable’ in a dollars and cents sense. Which is exactly how the CEO is thinking.
Caroline – the “gossipy” label is 100% a compliment:
http://blogs.creativeloafing.com/cribnotes/2008/09/30/gravy-train-vs-jared-swilley-of-the-black-lips/
http://blogs.creativeloafing.com/cribnotes/2008/09/19/when-ballin-goes-wrong/
Just a heads up ladies. Have You Heard had CL’s staff music writer Chad Radford on our latest podcast episode. We talked about the bankruptcy (and ribbed him a little about it).
I for one am glad they fired him. All the other locations, (Atlanta, Charolette, etc.) should have never been bought by Creative Loafing. These locations are being ran down by their employees, and Ben never should’ve of tried to save theor newspapers that are being ran by a bunch of ungrateful nitwits, that dont perform their duties correctly, and dont understand how to run a paper while trying to save their sorry ass’s.