Photo by Maria Jose Solis | The Crow’s Nest
By Reagan Haskell and Matthew McGovern
After 18 years of corporate ownership, Creative Loafing Tampa Bay, an alternative weekly news and arts publication, has been purchased by four of its own employees.
Creative Loafing’s editor-in-chief Ray Roa, senior sales executive Anthony Carbone and publishers Colin Wolfe and James Howard are the new co-owners of the alt-weekly paper.
For nearly 40 years, Creative Loafing has covered a wide range of topics such as local Tampa Bay news and art.
According to an article Creative Loafing released, before local ownership the publication was owned by Chava Communications, a media company that employs papers such as the Orlando Weekly and San Antonio Current.
Roa explained that when the team was approached with the idea of purchasing Creative Loafing, they leaped at the opportunity.
“I don’t think there’s a better time to own a publication, especially one like ours,” Roa told The Crow’s Nest.
The new owners expressed that their main goal for this paper is to keep their stories local and accessible. Beyond just publishing news articles, Creative Loafingcovers activities happening around the Tampa Bay area, spotlighting new restaurants, shops and music events.
“Creative loafing is the same. It’s just going to be different ownership. That is community-based and I’m just happy to be a part of that,” Creative Loafing managing editor Seline San Felice told The Crow’s Nest.
This purchase is coming just two months after the paper’s partnership with the Tampa Bay Journalism Project (TBJP), a nonprofit organization. Through this project, tax-deductible donations are collected on Creative Loafing’s behalf.
TBJP also aims to foster the growth of local publications and media outlets, including The Sapphic Sun, WMNF 88.5, The Tampa Monitor and the Tampa Bay Arts Passport.
According to Roa, the ability to accept more community donations will be integral for Creative Loafing to expand its internal pool of freelancers and full-time staff and continue publishing free weekly print issues of the paper.
“We’re a small team. Selene [San Felice] is our only editorial staffer at the moment. We run a robust and stable pool of freelancers, but that budget is minimal,” Roa said. “Colin has been here for… six years and he’s able to come back full-time after a ten-month sabbatical.”
San Felice, a former Tampa Tribune intern, said that the purchase is far smoother than the ‘merger’ between the Tampa Tribune and the Tampa Bay Times in 2016.
“I think you could call it more of a hostile takeover,” San Felice said. “This is obviously a very different situation because [Creative Loafing] is still the same. I’m just really happy to be a part of that.”
As Creative Loafing moves towards its 40th year of publication with a solid team of writers, editors and investors in place, Roa and his team are excited to continue delivering quality news to the local community.
“We’re all very happy—I definitely let myself feel that over the last few days,” Roa said. “We really just want to keep doing a ton of local stuff and… set the paper up for another 40 years, knock on wood.”
