Advertising

What are the advertising rates for print or digital?
For rate information, please email our Advertising Department at andrew.cylar@creativeloafing.com or carrie.karas@creativeloafing.com.

Do you have a Media Kit we can look at?
We certainly do. Give Carrie Karas a call at 404-702-7771 or Andrew Cylar at 404-630-2741

Photography

Thank you for your interest in working with Creative Loafing. Though we aren’t presently hiring photographers for full-time employment, we are always interested in fresh, local photography talent to work as freelancers for the publication.

We regularly use reader photos for our Time & Place feature (unpaid). T&P photos are published in the print paper on our Table of Contents with a time/date stamp as well as on CL’s Fresh Loaf news blog with a written explanation from the photographer. The photo feature is meant to be a dynamic, striking image that either reflects on the week’s or previous week’s news and events or stands alone as an arresting image to the viewer. The goal is to publish an image that is worthy of “1,000 words.” If this is something you think you’d be interested in, please email photos@creativeloafing.com.

We strongly encourage potential freelancers to submit images for either Photo of the Day or Time & Place, as it enables us to get acquainted with your work and your eye. It will help us determine how you might fit into the scheme of photography at CL.

We are also interested in video freelancers. If this is what you’re inquiring about, please send some samples or links to your previous video work to photos@creativeloafing.com.

Please send any questions or photo submissions to photos@creativeloafing.com. That will reach the Photo and Video Desk staff. Thank you!

Contributing to CL

I am a freelance photographer, can I submit my work to CL?
Send your resume and samples to Ben Eason, at ben.eason@creativeloafing.com or by snail mail to 115 Martin Luther King Jr., Dr. SW Suite 415 Atlanta, GA 30303.

I am a talented cartoonist, can I submit my work to CL?
Submit your resume and samples to editorial@creativeloafing.com or by snail mail to 115 Martin Luther King Jr., Dr. SW Suite 415 Atlanta, GA 30303.

I am a freelance writer and would like to write for CL. Do you have freelance guidelines?
Sure do! Here they are:

• We tell readers the real story.

• With a distribution of 60,000, Creative Loafing is Atlanta’s #1 print product. We are known for candor. We also are known for our coverage of politics, public affairs, social issues, culture, music, movies and the arts. Our stories must be fair and accurate, but can have a strong point of a view and even a little attitude. Our stories must be original: They must offer either a compellingly fresh look at a subject familiar to readers or a look at an entirely new but interesting subject.

• Creative Loafing writers are expected to adhere to the commonly understood principles of journalistic ethics: They must refrain from covering subject matter that could present a conflict of interest, may not accept gifts from sources and must report stories accurately and fairly. Although we encourage creative writing approaches, our writers generally adhere to the Associated Press Stylebook. The use of unnamed sources is discouraged and must receive an editor’s approval. Writers must be prepared to provide full documentation so that their stories can be fact-checked. These guidelines apply to freelance writers for Creative Loafing/Atlanta.

• We want reporting and writing of the highest quality. Cover stories (1,500-3,000 words) that are well researched, well written, fresh and impossible to ignore. We want writers to dig until they find out what’s really going on. We want stories that force readers to pick up CL every month because they know they will always get a fascinating read. They must have a strong local angle and must be of broad interest. The strongest covers have a central point or tell a dramatic tale. They may be investigations that expose government, corporate or individual wrongdoing; articles that challenge the conventional wisdom concerning important social or political issues; features about cultural or artistic trends that interest a broad range of readers; or profiles about fascinating people. We are not interested in exhaustive overviews, but we do want narratives about individuals that dramatically illustrate the big picture. We want stories with complications that must be resolved. We want writers to use multiple sources and, if necessary, documents and other public records to get a full-bodied understanding of their subject. Among our favorite beats are politics, injustice, the environment, business, tech companies, the arts and controversial personalities.

• Inside features on the arts, music, movies, travel and news (600-1,200 words). We want edgy stories in both the arts and in news—stories that others haven’t done yet, but still will interest a lot of people—stories about fresh faces, new groups, styles or trends; and unique or important events and issues. We strongly emphasize local stories that dig to the heart of the matter and speak candidly to our readers. The articles must be well researched, well written, with particular attention given to prose, story flow and maintaining the interest of our readers. Generally, we do not accept single-source stories. Look closely at each section of the paper to guide your queries.

• Reviews on the arts, music, restaurants and movies (400-800 words). Reviewers must demonstrate superior knowledge of their subject and be willing to offer criticism where it is due, but their work also must be fair and accurate. They should be adept at using wit and wordplay to express their points.

• Opinion or humor columns (500-700 words). We have limited space but occasionally do publish freelance columns. We place a premium on good writing, provocative ideas and interesting local issues.

Sounds good! How should I submit a query letter for an article?
Send a letter proposing your story idea or ideas to the appropriate section editor listed in the Creative Loafing staff box. We prefer e-mailed queries. Address your e-mail to the appropriate editor, placing a dot between the editor’s first and last name, and then: @creativeloafing.com. Our snail mail address is 115 Martin Luther King Jr., Dr. SW Suite 415 Atlanta, GA 30303.
(Explain what you plan to cover and how you will proceed with the reporting. The query should convey your approach and style, and should describe your specific qualifications to write on the topic.)

If you haven’t written for Creative Loafing before, please include samples of previously published articles and a resume. We’ll consider unsolicited manuscripts but can’t guarantee their return. We very seldom publish memoirs, fiction or articles that promote specific businesses.

So, um, how would I get paid? Do I own my work?
Our pay varies according the article. Checks are mailed two weeks after publication. No invoice is necessary. We buy first print and electronic rights, and the right to archive online. Writers must tell us if they’re working on or have published similar material elsewhere. They must obtain special permission to resell work performed for us in the Atlanta market. We offer kill fees equal to one-fourth of full payment on assigned articles only to writers who have been published by us before. First-time articles or articles written on spec will not, if unpublished, qualify for a kill fee.

Here are the editors of each section:
News: Editorial Department
Food & Drink: Will Cardwell
Events: Will Cardwell

I want to be an intern at CL, how do I do that?
Submit a cover letter, current resume and three writing samples (preferably newspaper clips) to Will Cardwell at 115 Martin Luther King Jr., Dr. SW Suite 415 Atlanta, GA 30303 or will.cardwell@creativeloafing.com. No phone calls or surprise visits, please.

Will I get school credit for my internship?
Yes. Only students enrolled in college and receiving credit are eligible. No exceptions.

What are some general intern responsibilities?
70 percent of the internship is data entry. Interns are encouraged to pitch story ideas, but we hold them to the same standards as our professional writers.

For more, detailed information, see our Editorial Internships page.

About an article

I think there is a factual error in a story, how do I alert someone about it?
Please send the writer an e-mail at [firstname].[lastname]@creativeloafing.com.

I want to send a letter to the editor/section editor/staff writer, where do I do that?
Letters to the Editor should be sent to letters.atl@creativeloafing.com
Check the staff box for section editors or staff writers and e-mail them at [firstname].[lastname]@creativeloafing.com

I saw something go down, where can I submit a news tip?
Please e-mail the Editorial Department at editorial@creativeloafing.com

Where can I, the aspiring musician, send in CDs for review?
Please mail press materials and the CD to Music Editor, Creative Loafing, 115 Martin Luther King Jr., Dr. SW Suite 415 Atlanta, GA 30303

Comment Policy

We encourage reasoned debate and discussion, fresh information, nattering idiocy and yowls of despair from commenters on CL blogs, stories, locations, and events. But we can’t vouch for the accuracy or tastefulness of comments. We reserve the right to delete comments that are libelous, defamatory, in violation of copyright law, inappropriate or harmful. We also reserve the right to ban individuals who are repeat offenders of such comments.

Please remember, we offer our website as a forum for community involvement and engagement, but access to the site is, at its core, a privilege and not a right. We won’t police every discussion on the site, but we take comment violations seriously.

If you feel a comment is not germane to the discussion, inflammatory, spammy, or otherwise unfit to be up on the site, please report it by clicking on the “Report this comment” link found under every comment on the site. We will then evaluate the violation and take action to pull the comment in dispute, at our discretion.

We do not edit comments for content, grammar, spelling or punctuation, and we are not legally responsible for what a user writes. Statements only reflect the opinions of their authors.

Reprints and Permissions

In print:

• Anyone wishing to photocopy or reprint editorial content from Creative Loafing may do so with verbal permission from the editor or the editor’s representative if the reprint request is under 100 copies, and with written permission for over 100 copies.

•In all cases, the reprints must clearly credit Creative Loafing and state the date of publication in a type size at least equal to the size of the body copy; we also ask that the credit state that Creative Loafing is “Atlanta’s alternative newsweekly.”

• It is our general policy to allow commercial publications outside metro Atlanta to republish—for a fee—staff-written or staff-produced material for Creative Loafing. In the case of freelance material, the arrangement must be made consistently with the writer’s contract, and usually with the writer or photographer. We generally refrain from permitting local publications reprint our articles.

• It is our general policy to allow reprints free of charge to nonprofit or government organizations. Small excerpts of our articles may be reprinted for political purposes, but if a political campaign or interest group wishes to publish more than one-third of an article we published, that group must publish the entire article. In all cases, reprints must be properly credited to Creative Loafing and the date must appear clearly.

Online edition:

Anyone wishing to republish editorial content from Creative Loafing online must first seek the permission of CL’s editor or the editor’s representative.

In most cases, we only will allow two paragraphs of an article (or a description of the article) to be run, along with a direct link to our site.

In any case, unless a special exception is made, the re-publisher must clearly credit Creative Loafing and state the date of publication in a type size at least equal to the size of the body copy, and must also include a direct link to creativeloafing.com.

Happenings

Where do I send press releases or submit event information?
Events can be submitted via our online form or e-mailed to happenings@creativeloafing.com. When sending via email, we strongly suggest that you include your event information in simple text within the Body of an email. JPG images and attachments must be under 15MB for submission via email.

Concerts and other music listings go to soundboard@creativeloafing.com

Food events, wine listings and tastings go to foodanddrink@creativeloafing.com

All other events go to happenings@creativeloafing.com

Any other press releases should be sent to the appropriate staffers:

News: Editorial Department
Music: Chad Radford
Food & Drink: Will Cardwell

How far out from the Atlanta metro area do you allow your happenings listings to be, to be considered for publication?
Creative loafing lists events within the metro area. We generally list events that are up to an hour away.

I want to modify/delete an event/listing I submitted, how do I do that?
It is strongly encouraged that you carefully proof your event information before sending. Due to the volume of requests that we receive, it is very difficult to handle corrections once an event has been submitted. If you have submitted incorrect information, send corrected information in its entirety (not just the piece of info—such as a date or location—that was incorrect) with a note that this information replaces any previously submitted listing.

The same deadline applies to listings corrections as other listings submissions. If a correction is not received by Wednesday at noon one week prior to the monthly print edition of the paper, the correction will not be reflected in that issue of the paper.

I submitted an event listing, but it was not in the paper/online, What happened?
We receive and manually enter submitted listings for both the newspaper and the website. This means that your listing will not appear online immediately after you send it.

All listings are in our online database, so check for your listing there before contacting us with problems. The monthly print edition of the paper is subject to a first-come-first-served space availability policy.

Listings may appear online up to one month earlier than the print edition.

Can I suggest a correction to a listing I saw at CL online?
You may only correct a listing that you have sent in yourself. If you have tried to attend a listed event and found that it is no longer occurring, you can send us that information as well.

Circulation

Where can I find a copy of the Creative Loafing?
You can find our print publications at over 1,500 locations in Metro Atlanta. See our online map of select circulation locations.

I want my business to sponsor promotions, or be part of a CL promotion, how do I do that?
In order for your event to be considered for a Creative Loafing marketing sponsorship, please email your request to Marketing.

Departments