Seattle Weekly publisher to join CL

Terry Coe starts July 3

It’s been a year since Creative Loafing has employed a full-time publisher — and nearly twice as long since the paper’s had a full-time ad director.

??
That’s about to change.

??
Creative Loafing Media CEO Ben Eason has tapped Terry Coe, publisher of Seattle Weekly, as the Loaf’s fourth publisher in less than three years. And David Schmall, general manager of the Dallas weekly Quick, has been named associate publisher — a “juiced-up” ad director, according to CLM Vice President Doug Tuthill.

??
“They’ve been incredibly successful every place they’ve been,” Tuthill says. “And I think it’s a real coup for us to get them both.”

??
Schmall’s first day will be May 15. Coe’s will be July 3.

??
Coe has worked at alternative newsweeklies for two decades and has held the publisher title at three papers. He spent 17 years with alt-weekly mega-chain New Times Inc. before joining Village Voice Media’s Seattle paper in 2002.

??
“I think we have a very, very strong situation in Atlanta,” Tuthill says. “But we do have a lot of competition. We are transitioning from a publishing company to a media company. And so having somebody who has competed very successfully and is able to bring a sense of security and confidence to a staff in this current environment is a very important asset.”

??
Last year’s much-scrutinized merger between New Times Inc. and Village Voice Media — the nation’s two biggest alt-weekly chains — meant that Coe was again working for the chain he’d left three years earlier. That made the Atlanta offer all the more enticing.

??
“I felt like the opportunities for me in Atlanta were going to be greater than they might be in this combined, larger company,” he says.

??
Eason hopes Coe will stick around longer than the Atlanta paper’s last head honcho. Michael Sigman, who spent 18 years at L.A. Weekly, first as general manager, then as publisher and president, was hired by CL last April — and quit 10 days later.

??
Eason now says he’s looking for a “10-year run” with Coe.

??
“If I’m there 10 years from now, which I hope to be, that means everything has gone well,” Coe says. “That would be the hope, and the intent.”

??
After Sigman’s unexpected departure in May 2005, Eason stepped in as interim publisher. At the time, he said he’d have a “strong bias” for an internal candidate.

??
Eason says he then spent several months honing the Atlanta paper’s “philosophical values, as well as a strong strategic plan.” Late last fall, he began his publisher hunt in earnest, with his eye trained on a candidate with longtime publishing experience.

??
The result was Coe, whom Eason had tried to lure to Creative Loafing Media’s Tampa paper, the Weekly Planet, three years earlier.

??
Schmall, the Atlanta paper’s new associate publisher, has publishing experience of his own. He held the publisher’s position at the alt-weekly Sacramento News & Review, then went on to be associate publisher at Minneapolis’s the Rake before launching the Dallas Morning News’ daily tabloid, Quick. The publication is one of the more successful efforts on the part of daily newspapers to reach the coveted 18-to-34 demographic.

??
The hires signify an effort to boost Creative Loafing’s revenue. The advertising department has been without a full-time, executive-level leader since the 2004 departure of ad director Patrick Best. Best left the Loaf in a cloud of controversy to start his own weekly publication, the Sunday Paper.

??
Coe has experience competing with a younger, scrappier paper — though a far more formidable one — in Seattle’s The Stranger, which was launched by one of the founders of the Onion.

??
But Coe and Eason are quick to stress that Coe will be brought in not to hone CL’s editorial content. (“I doubt that anyone will see a lot of changes in the content of our paper,” Eason says.) Rather, Coe’s challenge will be to aggressively build revenue and continue CL’s online expansion.

??
“I’m first and foremost a business person,” Coe says. “I’m not a journalist. That side of the business, I believe, is best left to the editors and has to be left to the editors.”

??
But having spent two decades in what he believes to be the edgiest medium out there, Coe does have some strong convictions about what alt-weeklies ought to say.

??
“I believe in independent journalism,” he continues. “Personally, I like to see no sacred cows, regardless of political agenda, be it liberal, conservative, whatever. I really believe in the value of an independent press that sees their role truly as the Fourth Estate, to keep an eye on the interest of the public even when the public doesn’t want to hear about it.”






Activism
Issues
The Blotter
COVID Updates
Latest News
Current Issue