Yesterday Creative Loafing, the owner of the Washington City Paper, announced it had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. In a post on City Desk, City Paper editor Erik Wemple quoted Loaf CEO Ben Eason playing the filing off as not as bad as it sounds, since bankruptcy will give the company the breathing room it needs to finish a structural reorganization directed toward the internet. TambaBay.com's The Feed blog dug into the Loaf's financials, arguing that despite assurances to the contrary, it does appear as though debt accrued in the course of purchasing the City Paper and the Chicago Reader last year played a role in the bankruptcy.

As for what all this means for City Paper staffers and readers, Wemple tells us that it's a mixed bag: fears of more layoffs have been allayed since Creative Loafing has said the filing means editorial cuts are off the table for now, but plans to change what the City Paper covers and how are still in the pipeline.

"Creative Loafing has made a strong decision to squeeze every last drop of revenue out of the Internet, so the directive is to deploy our people to the greatest extent possible toward the Web first, with the idea of backing that stuff into the paper when deadline time rolls around," Wemple said. "We'll still be looking more for newsier items and some aggregation on the Web rather than the narratives that have traditionally filled the paper."

The bottom line? You should still expect to see cuts in the traditional City Paper cover story in the near future. Some weeks you might see a more or less standard long feature on the cover, while others you might find smaller parts of the paper being promoted there, or even just a piece of artwork that has nothing to do with the inside content.