Michael Miner reports today on the status of the Creative Loafing, Inc. bankruptcy. The bottom line is that if the judge rules that Atalaya Capital can bid the way it wants for the assets, the future is dim for the Chicago Reader and the other alternative newspapers owned by Creative Loafing. The asset auction, as it is called, is open to any person willing and able to bid. Ben Eason, the CEO of Creative Loafing will be bidding with BIA Digital Partners, a major creditor of the company against Atalaya.

However, Atalaya owns a $30 million debt in the company. That is several times the debt of the next largest creditor, BIA, at $10 million. It could essentially bid $31 million before it would put any more capital into the company, according to Miner's story.

To put that into perspective, the Sun-Times Media Group, currently valued at about $0.01 a share (one cent a share), has a total market capitalization (value) of just under a million dollars.

Management at Creative Loafing has developed a reorganization which includes plans to aggressively pursue an on-line presence. Alex Pickett, Peter Schorsch and Michael Hussey have all discussed the transition underway in the Florida CLI newspaper. Execution of the on-line publication, which is described as a local version of the Chicago Examiner or the Huffington Post, has been disappointing according to their reports. Hussey says simply “Someone Please Kill the Daily Loaf Blog.”

Follow that link to the Daily Loaf and you'll find it is dead.

Follow it up one level and you'll find a gateway to the web sites of the six publications owned by CLI, including the Chicago Reader.

Check it out now. Unfortunately, in a little over a month, that too could be a dead link.

If you could buy the Sun-Times Media Group for about $10 million or the Creative Loafing chain for about $32 million, which would you buy? Leave your comments here or e-,mail them to LouGrant70 (at) yahoo. And please, include at least 50 words on why you hate the Huffington Post.