Jeff Clark is Atlanta's worst critic
This is Clark's publishing model: piss people off and it'll keep them reading.
- SADIE ATES
- Jeff Clark
Last year, Creative Loafing ran a feature about local music rag Stomp and Stammer celebrating 17 years of publication. The story opened with a quote from the editor and publisher, Jeff Clark, saying "Every now and then, somebody will come up to me and say to my face, 'You're an asshole' and walk away ... I can handle it. A lot of people are afraid of not being liked. For most of my adult life I've never had that fear." As far as I can tell, this is Clark's publishing model: piss people off and it'll keep them reading.
Yesterday, Atlanta lit up with anger over Clark's latest editorial provocation. The blurb reads:
"Most Overdone Memorial: The ongoing posthumous deification of Ria Pell. She was a nice woman who opened a restaurant that helped revitalize a stretch of Memorial Drive. She was also unhealthy and met with an early death. Had she not been lesbian, had she been a straight woman or man we would have seen but a fraction of the reaction. Instead, she was unrealistically elevated into something she wasn't: a symbolic figure."
I'm no stranger to the idea of floating unpopular opinions. What Clark is suggesting here is not an "unpopular opinion." This is spiteful talk that has no basis in reality. Ria Pell's life is celebrated by so many people in Atlanta because we admire what she did with it on her terms, in her way. She lived with a kind of freedom and independence that many of us only aspire to. She also spent more time making friends and supporting them than she did courting enemies. For those simple reasons, thousands in Atlanta memorialized her in one way or another. For Clark to come out this way isn't just mean, it is tone deaf. It illustrates his inability to look at a set of facts and be able to interpret them in any coherent way. Clark isn't just an asshole. He's also bad at his job.
With that in mind, it seems that Clark has done more than make people not like him this time. A group has already been formed to "Boycott Stomp And Stammer And All Who Advertise There." This time, it seems that readers are determined to call Stomp and Stammer's pocketbook the asshole, not just Clark's face. This is, I think, fair. If readers are the ones keeping your publication afloat, every once in awhile, they might consider getting together to decide who deserves to stay in the boat.
When I suggested the idea of responding publicly about this, a couple of my coworkers were uneasy with the idea. "By putting his name in print over this we're only giving him a larger platform, and is it worth giving him publicity?" one asked.
Well, we've given him publicity in the past with stories like that anniversary one. Rightfully so, I think. Despite Clark and his film minion David T. Lindsay's miserably awful opinions and attitudes, they are very much part of the fabric of Atlanta print media. It takes a hell of a lot of support to keep a print publication going for years, especially these days. (Creative Loafing knows plenty about that.) Obviously, there are still a few people picking up that rag, reading it, and even sending in the checks for advertising space next to Stomp and Stammer's moronic editorials. Whether that community support will continue into the future remains to be seen.
I've reached out to Clark for comment and will update this post if he responds.
UPDATE: Clark has posted this apology on Facebook:
