Creative Loafing\u2019s 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.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
For nearly 40 years, Creative Loafing has covered a wide range of topics such as local Tampa Bay news and art.\u00a0<\/p>\n
According to an article Creative Loafing released, before local ownership the publication was owned by Chava Communications<\/a>, a media company that employs papers such as the Orlando Weekly and San Antonio Current.\u00a0<\/p>\n Roa explained that when the team was approached with the idea of purchasing Creative Loafing, they leaped at the opportunity. \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s a better time to own a publication, especially one like ours,\u201d Roa told The Crow\u2019s Nest.\u00a0<\/p>\n 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.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cCreative loafing is the same. It\u2019s just going to be different ownership. That is community-based and I\u2019m just happy to be a part of that,\u201d Creative Loafing managing editor Seline San Felice told The Crow\u2019s Nest.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n This purchase is coming just two months after the paper\u2019s partnership with the Tampa Bay Journalism Project (TBJP), a nonprofit organization. Through this project, tax-deductible donations are collected on Creative Loafing\u2019s behalf.\u00a0<\/p>\n TBJP also aims to foster the growth of local publications and media outlets, including The Sapphic Sun<\/a>, WMNF 88.5<\/a>, The Tampa Monitor<\/a> and the Tampa Bay Arts Passport.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re 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,\u201d Roa said. \u201cColin has been here for\u2026 six years and he\u2019s able to come back full-time after a ten-month sabbatical.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n San Felice, a former Tampa Tribune intern, said that the purchase is far smoother than the \u2018merger\u2019 between the Tampa Tribune and the Tampa Bay Times in 2016.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI think you could call it more of a hostile takeover,\u201d San Felice said. \u201cThis is obviously a very different situation because [Creative Loafing] is still the same. I\u2019m just really happy to be a part of that.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n 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.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re all very happy\u2014I definitely let myself feel that over the last few days,\u201d Roa said. \u201cWe really just want to keep doing a ton of local stuff and\u2026 set the paper up for another 40 years, knock on wood.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Written by: Reagan Haskell<\/a> on January 30, 2026.
Last revised by: Alisha Durosier<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo by Maria Jose Solis | The Crow\u2019s Nest By Reagan Haskell and Matthew McGovern After 18 years…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":137978,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":{"0":"post-137977","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-petersburg","8":"tag-st-pete","9":"tag-st-pete-headlines","10":"tag-st-pete-news","11":"tag-st-petersburg","12":"tag-st-petersburg-headlines","13":"tag-st-petersburg-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137977\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}