Less than two weeks after Atlanta’s Creative Loafing laid out the sad state of affairs for LGBT media-startups in Atlanta comes word that the the Atlanta Free Press has gone two weeks without printing and its future remains in doubt.
According to Creative Loafing’s Patrick Saunders, AFP failed to release the last two issues because, as publisher Matt Neumann said, “It wasn’t going in the direction that I wanted it to go.” Neumann and interim editor Xanna Don’t (the previous editor left after rumors surfaced that he’d previously fabricated quotes) have also parted ways over “creative differences.”
News of AFP’s possible demise first surfaced in the Atlanta Progressive News, which reported there were no papers available at any of the usual haunts–including newspaper boxes owned by the bankrupt Southern Voice–and that potential advertisers were getting the run-around and confusing answers.
Besides people not getting paid, Saunders reported that part of the tension at AFP was Neumann’s decision to accept an article from producers of the play “A Sordid Affair,” who also had bought advertising in the paper.