Despite uncertainties in the news industry, journalism is here to stay, says Meaghan Habuda.
BY SARAH NORCINI
NNB Student Reporter
It’s 7 p.m. on a Thursday when Creative Loafing’s Meaghan Habuda, 23, arrives at the Mad Beach Craft Brewing Company in Madeira Beach.
She has come for the screening of a new craft beer documentary titled Blood, Sweat and Beer, which is a part of Tampa Bay Beer Week.
The brewery is a large room with a bar on one end and long tables, stools, a stage and TV screens on the other. Habuda finds a seat with the best view of the film.
Over the course of the screening, she takes an occasion note in her red notebook and snaps a few photos – moments in the documentary, the crowd and the two filmmakers.
The 70-minute film tells the stories of breweries in Ocean City, Md., and Braddock, Pa. When it ends, Habuda approaches the filmmakers to let them know who she is and alert them to her upcoming story for CL.
The short story appeared the next day on the CL website. It summarized the documentary and offered information on the filmmakers.
As food and drink editor of Creative Loafing, Habuda says of her job, “I don’t not like anything.” She interned at CL in the summer of 2013, then was hired part time in March 2014. She’s been full time since November.
Creative Loafing, which bills itself as the third largest newspaper in Tampa Bay with a circulation of 50,000, is one of more than a hundred alternative weeklies in the United States.
Alternative weeklies typically cover culture, the arts and local politics in a breezy, irreverent style.
The papers have been hard hit by the Great Recession and digital revolution, and for a time CL was in bankruptcy. The paper now has a new owner, SouthComm Inc. of Nashville, and editor-in-chief David Warner says it is profitable.
The paper’s staff works out of a large room above Spaghetti Warehouse at 1911 N 13th St. in Tampa’s Ybor City.
The room is split between office space and a large open area with a stage where CL hosts parties and public events. The office area is split again, with advertising staff on one side and editorial on the other.
The room is quiet, with several staff members plugged into their laptops via headphones. In the back are the archives, dating back to the 1980s.
CL, which is free, is distributed in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties. But Habuda says the staff has an online-first mindset. The staff can do new things online, she says, but can still have a “cool spread” with both print and digital.
Despite the uncertainties buffeting alternative weeklies and mainstream dailies, Habuda believes that journalism isn’t going anywhere.
“Journalism is not allowed to die,” she says.
She doesn’t see alternative newspapers as the future of journalism, however. “Someone needs to report the newsy stuff,” she says. Alt weeklies like CL are a vehicle for people to get away from reality.
Although the CL staff covers current events, she says, they can put their “own spin” on it.
Much as she loves what she does, Habuda says, it’s not what she thought she would end up doing.
She’s always wanted to be in journalism. In high school, she had the “old school traditional expectation” of journalism and wanted to write about corruption, local politics and government – to “take down those bastards with my words.”
While she was studying for a bachelor’s at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg, not much changed.
At her current job, Habuda says, she is the youngest of the four editors who report to Warner. She is expected to write three online posts of about 500 words every day.
Habuda is in the office Monday through Wednesday and works from home on Thursday and Friday. The staff’s print deadline is Tuesday, with the print version going out on Thursdays.
She’s not in it for the money, Habuda says; she is just glad she has a job.
She is happy at CL, she says, but doesn’t see this as a long-term position. If a better opportunity came up, she would leave.
No matter what, she wants to remain a journalist.