Creative Loafing’s Ben Eason talks to Editor & Publisher

Ben Eason, Creative Loafing’s CEO, gets some prime real estate in Editor & Publisher’s Special Report on newspaper bankruptcy.

The most interesting part of the article is Eason’s revelation that he expects CL to emerge from bankruptcy over the summer, at which time “everyone will know the company’s real worth”:

“As time goes on, people are more realistic in what the company can produce going forward. We have an opportunity. It’s an opportunity to suggest to the creditors, to the judge, to everybody involved what we believe the company will look like going forward and then we have the opportunity to suggest what the capital structure is going to be. We are forced to value the company, not as we would like it to be, or what it was, but what it is today.”

Reactions to Creative Loafing bankruptcy verdict

Wayne Garcia broke the news about the ruling that kept Creative Loafing under Ben Eason’s control. The real fireworks, however, are in the comments.

Here’s former Loafer Alex Pickett’s take on the ruling.

Nothing much shaking at either the Washington City Paper or Chicago Reader blogs. Most I could dig up was this from City Paper City Lights Editor Mike Riggs, who tweets:

Mood at the office in the wake of Creative Loafing bankruptcy verdict: Somber, w/ occasional joke about who will become “chief aggregator.”

Ben Eason maintains control of Creative Loafing

Alex Pickett called me about an hour ago to report that Judge Caryl Delano ruled in Creative Loafing’s bankruptcy case, leaving the company in the hands of CEO Ben Eason.

However, he mentioned other issues remain, including Ben’s proposed reorganization plan and mediation with the lender, Atalaya. Alex told me he will blog about this later today at Alex Pickett.com.

Creative Loafing and Atalaya’s closing arguments

I just read through the written closing arguments by Atalaya and Creative Loafing that were delivered to Judge Caryl Delano with regard to CL’s bankruptcy case.

Here are Atalaya’s closing argument and Creative Loafing’s closing argument.

One of the major points Atalaya makes is that CL’s own valuation of its company ignores its market value:

Creative Loafing, bankruptcy, Ben Eason and morale

Washington City Paper takes a dig at its owner, Creative Loafing, in this March 13 Morning Roundup by Mike Riggs:

Also, Wayne Garcia of Tampa’s Creative Loafing has a great update from yesterday’s CL bankruptcy case, in which someone–can’t say who–tells a fib or two about the state of company morale.

It’s fairly obvious that Riggs is talking about CL CEO Ben Eason. Here’s the relevant passage from Garcia’s post:

The man who would own Creative Loafing

Brian Conley, the Sunday Paper shareholder who has offered $13.3 million to purchase Creative Loafing, Inc., earned a rebuke from CL CEO Ben Eason when he said that Eason believed in limiting his editorial budget to 10 percent of gross revenues. Turns out it wasn’t the first time he’d made the claim.

In a December Sunday Paper interview with Conley and SP Publisher Patrick Best, Conley gave a similar statement:

Creative Loafing still target of Sunday Paper shareholder

Metro Pulse sheds a little more light on Brian Conley, the Knoxville businessman who is looking to buy Creative Loafing, Inc.

The article also quotes Creative Loafing, Inc. CEO Ben Eason, including this response to Conley’s criticism of his editorial budget:

It sounds like he does not have a good enough handle of our plan to be making some of the comments he’s been making,” says Eason, who has not spoken with Conley personally

Newspapers aren’t dead, part 2

Ah, much food for thought today. In his ongoing look at the transition from print to digital, Alan Mutter points out that traffic to newspaper sites is derived largely from readers of the print product:

One of the biggest reasons to question the potential for standalone newspaper sites has been identified by Greg Harmon of Belden Interactive, who since 2001 has polled 300,000 newspaper website users in 250 markets across the country.

In his work, Harmon has discovered quite consistently that fully two-thirds of the visitors to newspaper sites say they visited the site because they are readers of the print newspaper.

Jeff Jarvis — BuzzMachine guru, noted “Blog Daddy” and author of What Would Google Do? — thanks Mutter for doing the math, but offers this counterpoint:

Some papers simply cannot afford the cost of print now and so they’d better figure out life post-print or there won’t be any.

Not entirely irreconcilable positions, both with something important to say about the state of media today. Let’s revisit one of Steve Yelvington’s assertions, which inspired this post: