Media Convergence at Creative Loafing Tampa
By Manny Carrasco
Introduction
Creative Loafing is a chain of alternate weeklies with papers in Atlanta, Charlotte, Chicago, Tampa, Sarasota and Washington D.C., making it the second largest chain of alternative weeklies behind the Village Voice, which has a total of 17 different papers. One of the chain’s larger papers, Creative Loafing Tampa’s offices are located in historical Ybor, currently in a temporary work space. Yet, even as they prepare to move across the courtyard of their building to a larger, better-suited space, you can see the grooves of a calm, well-oiled machine. The offices are dimly lit with personal lamps and natural lighting. The employees, including advertising executives and reporters, are quietly at work. The mild setting belies the great amount of their work; near the back of the offices stands a case with shelves and shelves of volumes of Creative Loafing issues, dating back to its inception, through its name change and back to its rechristening.
In addition to their weekly publication, Creative Loafing also has a Web site, a Twitter account, a Facebook page, and a MySpace account for each city. Today, Creative Loafing Tampa is the area’s third largest publication and covers "Music," “News & Politics,” “Food & Drink,” “Sex & Love,” "Movies," “Arts &Entertainment,” and “Green Community.” Its staff is headed by David Warner, editor, Creative Loafing Tampa, who has been with the paper through its many names since 2004.
Full-time and part-time staff in charge of editorial content includes Joe Bardi, associate editor/operations-movies editor, Shawn Alff, "Sex & Love" editor, Katie Machol, "Green Community" co-editor, Mitch Perry, "News & Politics" editor, Leilani Polk, "Music" and events editor, Brian Ries, food critic, and Franki Weddington, "Arts & Entertainment" editor.
In general, the chain Creative Loafing has an alternative media approach. Colloquial, foul-mouthed, "Hipster" jargon is frequently used in articles. Taboo topics and alternative perspectives on politics are one of the many staples to this publication. Columns about local politics ("The Political Whore" by Wayne Garcia), Dear Abby-style Q&A ("Savage Love" by Dan Savage), as well as national columns ("The Straight Dope" by Cecil Adams) have helped construct the chain into what it is today.
A Creative History
Creative Loafing was founded in 1972 by Chick and Debbie Eason in Atlanta, Georgia. Eventually, the paper expanded into a chain of papers, including versions in Charlotte, Tampa and Sarasota. Creative Loafing Tampa was founded in 1988. It was eventually purchased by Ben Eason, Chick and Debbie’s son, and renamed the Weekly Planet in 1994. By 2000, Ben bought the entire Creative Loafing chain. In 2006, Weekly Planet reverted back to its original name, Creative Loafing.
In 2007, with help from the hedge fund Atalaya, Ben Eason bought Washington City Paper and the Chicago Reader, two of the most respected and successful alternate weeklies in the nation. Yet, at this time, the United States economy was crumbling and Eason began to default on his payments. In fact, during Ben Eason’s tenure as CEO of Creative Loafing, the company claimed bankruptcy and employees had no idea who would be Creative Loafing’s eventual owners.
Atalaya was able to wrest control of the company, buying the chain of papers, marking the first time in Creative Loafing’s history that it was not in the hands of the Eason family. Naturally, employees’ concerns then turned to the motives of their new owners; their main fears included whether everyone would be fired, whether Atalaya would turn Creative Loafing into an ad rag, and also if the hedge fund’s plans were to fatten the chain up and sell it off at a huge profit.
Employees soon discovered that Atalaya had different plans for the paper. Through very encouraging moves, they showed they planned to push Creative Loafing back to consistent profitability. Atalaya began by creating a board of advisors with strong professional backgrounds, including Jim O’Shea, a former senior executive at the Los Angeles Times. They also brought in Marty Petty, former publisher of the St. Petersburg Times, as Creative Loafing’s CEO, replacing Ben Eason as the company’s permanent chief executive. Petty explained to chief editors like Warner that her main interest was in telling a good story and making money doing it, something the editor sees as inextricable from the other. This gave the publishers confidence that Atalaya has Creative Loafing’s best interests in mind.
How to be Creative Loafing
Currently, there is no longer one source where readers recieve their news and information. Not only are there a large number of printed publications, but the online options are endless. In order to cater to their audience more efficiently, thus ensuring their continued readership, Creative Loafing looks to find who their readers are and find out what they want. They accomplish this using The Media Audit, a qualitative audience survey that pinpoints not only who the audience is, but also what they enjoy to do, see, read and watch. Through telephone surveys done for each of Creative Loafing’s papers, they break down audiences to very specific segments. This helps to give advertisers statistics, but is also helpful for Creative Loafing to know their reader. What editors at Creative Loafing have discovered is that their readers’ mean age is older than what it used to be, meaning their readers are growing up with the paper.
Editors have labeled their typical reader as the “urban explorer,” a member of the cultural creative. This reader enjoys the diversity and cultural offerings of an urban environment and seeks information for how to live in an urban environment, whether they actually live in one or not. So, they seek restaurant reviews, theater reviews, and basically all information pertaining to the city of Tampa. They are also quite modern and in touch with the latest technologies. In order to keep up with this sophisticated reader, Creative Loafing has had to place an equal amount of attention on both web and print mediums. Ben Eason is credited for leading the way in this regard. He pushed to change Creative Loafing’s mentality to become web first. Creative Loafing puts their stories online first and then decide which of these stories will make it to the print edition.
They’ve found that their readers either read the online or the print versions, so the fact that there is a great deal of overlap in their editorial content is inconsequential, most of their readers will never realize the recycling pattern. To decide what makes it into the print version of the paper, the editors hold staff meetings to pick what stories are worthy. Yet, some of the stories written are held from the Web site until they are published in print, then a version pops up on the Web site. For example, Mitch Perry, the "News & Politics" editor, recently wrote a story about local medical marijuana, which was being saved for print. As soon as it is delivered, a version of the story will make it onto the Web site. There are no print exclusive stories though. If a story is in the printed edition, there will always be at least some form of it on the Web site.
When online producer Stephen Hammill suggested a departure from the standard look of other Creative Loafing home pages, the Tampa Web site became a pioneer site in terms of layout. The original layout highlighted three to four stories and then linked to an individual department. What the editorial team wanted was for the home page to look like there was a lot going on in Tampa and that the site had a lot of content covering these events. So, they decided to change it so it was component-based, each department would have its own Web site. The home page would have content related to each department but each department would also have its own hub with even more content and material of greater interest. Users would have the opportunity to select specific department pages to make as bookmarks, avoiding the home page entirely if necessary.
Ben Eason is also credited for Creative Loafing’s current editorial structure. The chain’s production staff is located in Atlanta, while the corporate staff is located in Tampa. Each paper has its own independent staff while also consolidating the production and design aspects. The print editions were clearly Creative Loafing papers, they looked similar with only slight distinctions separating the different versions. Through calls and emails, the editorial staffs of the many papers decide the look and design of the overall paper. Though Washington City Paper and the Chicago Reader would keep their own identity, they were also brought into the design loop of the other Creative Loafing papers.
Even with all the teamwork, the editorial staffs rarely share much editorial content, choosing to run stories that they like. Creative Loafing Tampa places emphasis on Tampa in articles as much as possible. Naturally, their Web site is slightly different since they also aggregate national news stories, but there is no doubt that each paper has their city in mind when choosing stories. But, since they do not have a very large staff, the editorial team tries to keep it Tampa-related. Yet, this consolidation also gives Creative Loafing additional chances for selling ad revenue. With more space available on their Web site, as well as the print version, Creative Loafing has even more opportunities for advertisers to place orders with them. This is especially important because Creative Loafing’s profit is entirely driven by ad revenue. The papers themselves are free to readers. The amount of edit pages is determined by the week’s revenue. Creative Loafing Tampa has two editions: a larger edition that is sent out to the southern counties, as well as a smaller edition that has less pages. Depending on the publisher, the editorial team can have anywhere from 24 to 28 edit pages in the large edition while having half of that in the smaller editions.
Another successful way Creative Loafing has approached advertising is a system called "CL Deals," where they offer merchants ad space for gift cards, which they then re-sell for half the gift cards’ value. This is a beneficial system for both parties as the restaurant gets to pay in gift cards and receives free advertisements, but also Creative Loafing is making a profit off of something they essentially get for free. Furthermore, the people who buy the gift cards must then go to the restaurant anyway, likely spending more than the gift card as well.
Challenges and Discussions
Due to the instantaneous electronic transmission of information the Internet offers, the challenges for a smaller weekly like Creative Loafing have increased. It has also leveled the playing field for them to compare to larger papers like The New York Times. Creative Loafing, in its print and online editions demands a large amount of content. Because of this demand, the concept of contributors was introduced by online producer, Stephen Hammill. As the staff shrunk, the amount of content remained the same. Creative Loafing then opened up their pages to community bloggers. Warner has a group of contributors he relies on to submit printed reviews, but there are numerous of other contributors with strong interests who blog solely on the Web site. If their stories receive 500 or more hits within a two-week pay period, they are paid on a scale. The blog posts that make it to the print edition also earn the writers money for the reprint. Yet, this is not an ideal situation for the editorial staff. Warner described the system as an “embarrassment of riches.” Quality dropped and editors found themselves spending more time editing contributed stories than doing their own work. Another challenge comes in the form of St. Petersburg Times’ Tbt, which was created in direct competition to Creative Loafing.
Because of St. Petersburg Times’ greater revenue, they are able to deliver the paper in more places than Creative Loafing. If Creative Loafing is not there, this increases the chances Tbt will be read by casual lunch goers and individuals in general. Editors believe people are looking for something different than Tbt, which is basically rebranded stories from the St. Petersburg Times. All Creative Loafing is interested in is getting eyeballs. They don’t see the Tbt as a big obstacle in this endeavor. In fact, Creative Loafing believes their strengths are stronger than any of their threats. One threat is the state of the economy, which has led to their current financial state. Another threat is the fragmentation of the media, which has lead to the paper stretching itself to the limit in order to fill content. This creates a need on many platforms. While the ever-changing and improving levels of technology is not a threat, it certainly is a challenge for Creative Loafing. They will always have to keep up with the trends. Currently, they’ve started working through social media such as Twitter and Facebook, as mentioned, but a big question for editors like Warner is, “What is next month’s Twitter?” What is it indeed?
**All substantive information contained within this paper is from notes compiled in an interview with David Warner, editor, Creative Loafing Tampa.