Creative Loafing

Creative Loafing

Company type	Private
Industry	Publishing
Founded	1972 (1972)
Fate	Sold to Ben Eason in February, 2017 by SouthComm Publishing following a brief ownership by hedge fund Atalaya
Headquarters	Atlanta, Georgia , United States
Products	Alternative weekly newspapers in Atlanta.
Owner	Deborah and Chick Eason (1972–2000) Ben Eason (2000–2009) Atalaya Capital Management (2009–2012) SouthComm (2012–2017) Ben Eason (2017–current)
Website	creativeloafing.com

Creative Loafing is an Atlanta-based publisher of arts and culture news and events. The company historically published a weekly publication that once had a 160,000 weekly circulation. It's last print edition was its 50th anniversary issue in 2022 featuring pieces by former Mayor Andrew Young, former editors Bridget Booher and Cliff Bostock. While Creative Loafing is no longer publishing a newspaper, it continues to serve a critical role as Atlanta's primary calendar of cultural events. It's critics have deep roots in Atlanta's culture - particularly in music. Currently The company has historically been a part of the alternative weekly newspapers association in the United States.

Creative Loafing began as a family-owned business in 1972 by Deborah and Chick Eason, 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. The parent company, Creative Loafing, Inc. was dissolved and Atalaya sold off the Chicago Reader. In 2012, SouthComm purchased all of the properties and then sold off each of the papers to other publishers in 2018.

The Atlanta Creative Loafing launched the career of many writers and has been an institution in Atlanta's cultural scene. The Parrotheads of Jimmy Buffett fame were launched from an ad in Creative Loafing in the 1990s. 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. Mara Shaloup won a Clarion Award for her work breaking the Black Mafia story in 2006. Investigative report and CL Editor CB Hackworth unleashed a torrent of soul-searching for his piece on racial segregation which brought Oprah Winfrey to Forsyth County to confront overt racism in 1987.