Creative Loafing
| Private | |
| Industry | Publishing |
| Fate | Sold to SouthComm and other publishers |
| Founded | 1972 |
| Defunct | July 3, 2012 |
| Headquarters | Atlanta, Georgia, United States |
| Products | Alternative weekly newspapers in Atlanta, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and other cities |
| Owner | Deborah and Chick Eason, 1972-2000 Ben Eason, 2000-2009 Atalaya Capital Management, 2009-2012 |
| Website | creativeloafing |
Creative Loafing, also known as CL Inc., was an Atlanta-based publisher of alternative weekly newspapers in the United States, including several Creative Loafing titles, which operated 1972–2012. The Atlanta Creative Loafing launched the career of best-selling author and American humorist Hollis Gillespie by debuting her weekly column "Moodswing," which first appeared in 2001 and ran for eight years. Jill Hannity, the wife of Sean Hannity, was the managing editor of the newspaper 1993–1996 until their move to New York City, which commenced Sean Hannity's television career.
Creative Loafing began as a family-owned business in the 1970s, expanding to other cities in the Southern United States in the late 1980s and 1990s. In 2007 it doubled its circulation with the purchase of the Chicago Reader and Washington City Paper; the $40 million debt it incurred, along with an economic recession, forced the company into bankruptcy one year later. By 2012 it had sold all of its properties to other publishers.
At the time it declared bankruptcy in 2008, Creative Loafing owned six alternative weeklies:
Other newspapers the company published over its 40-year history included:
Deborah and Elton "Chick" Eason founded Creative Loafing Atlanta in 1972, originally publishing it from the basement of their home in the Morningside neighborhood of Atlanta.
After a decade and a half in Atlanta, the Easons established new Creative Loafing weeklies in March 1987 in Charlotte, North Carolina, and in 1988 in Tampa, Florida. Other expansions or acquisitions included newspapers in Greenville, South Carolina; Raleigh, North Carolina; and Savannah, Georgia.
The company also expanded its footprint in the Atlanta area, starting two community weeklies, Gwinnett Loaf and Topside Loaf, covering the suburbs north of the city in Cobb, Gwinnett, southern Forsyth and northern Fulton counties. Bowing to reader complaints about racy advertisements in Creative Loafing Atlanta, the Easons established a separate Atlanta publication, The Scene, for nightlife listings. These three Atlanta-area publications would later be folded back into Creative Loafing Atlanta in 2001.
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