Monday, November 24, 2008

Creative Loafing's Ken Edelstein Leaves

According to Atlanta Magazine's Steve Fennessey, Creative Loafing's Editor Ken Edelstein separated from the troubled company this morning.
Staffers within the paper said that Edelstein was called into a meeting this morning with Lebedz and a human resources manager. While he was in the meeting, the staffers said, Edelstein's computer was confiscated by IT workers. About twenty minutes later, Edelstein emerged from the meeting, took his coat and walked out. The editorial department, some in tears, followed him. When they returned, Lebedz announced that Edelstein and CL had "parted ways," but did not elaborate.
Details are sketchy and it is unclear if Edelstein left on his own volition.

UPDATE: The AJC confirms with Edelstein that his separation was involuntary.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is absolutely terrible news. Ken was -- and is -- an exceptionally talented and dedicated journalist who always cared about putting out the best possible product. He believed in his people and his newspaper and it's hard to imagine that his replacement will be able to match that.

I only worked directly for Ken for a short time, but in that time I learned a lot about journalism. But I learned even more about putting my all into what I do and not settling just because something is good enough.

I hope he lands on his feet.

Unknown said...

It is surprising to see all of the praise lately for Ken Edelstein when in fact he was facing an harassment suit from one of his employees. He may have been an average newspaper editor but he was an above average jerk.

Ken Edelstein said...

Ugh ... First of all, thanks to lots of folks for the kind comments on various blogs around town, including lazermike's above. Weird as it sounds, I'm having a lot of fun right now, and a lot of that has to do with all the kind words and good wishes coming from different people, many of whom I haven't heard from in years. Thank you! ... Second, I hate to have to even respond to what "Max" wrote but I suppose I should because what he wrote is a flat-out, total, defamatory lie. No such thing is happening now or ever happened. Period. Jeez, Max, there probably are plenty of true embarrassing things to say about me; why bother making something up?