By Jarvis Holliday
Photography by Richard Israel

Editor in chief of Charlotte’s Creative Loafing, an alternative weekly newspaper

Since moving here in 2006, Carlton Hargro has helped Creative Loafing become a major player online. “I want to give people a reason to go to the Web every day,” says Hargro, 40. “And so I built 14 blogs, a social media strategy, and anything you can think of to reach out and engage people. We’ve basically tripled the page views from the time that I took over.

“Yes, people are surprised,” he says, when they learn that the editor of Creative Loafing is black. “I think they associate this type of publication with a white audience. But when you really read them, you’ll see that the voice and everything probably speaks to you.”

WHAT’S BLACK,WHITE, AND (NOT) READ ALL OVER?
The funny pages in newspapers.When newspapers started shrinking, comic strips were the first things to get cut.

HOW DO YOU GET YOUR NEWS?
I listen to NPR a lot. I’ll download a bunch of podcasts, like Fresh Air and This American Life. I read print newspapers online. I even get news from Twitter and Facebook.

BLACKBERRY, IPHONE, OR DROID?
iPhone. I prefer Mac products in general.

BARBECUE SAUCE OR VINEGAR?
I’m from the North, so we never sided with it like they do here. I never ate pulled pork until I moved to the South. If the grill master is really good, you don’t need sauce.

IF YOU WEREN’T AN EDITOR WHAT WOULD YOU BE?
It’s sad. [Laughs] I’ve been collecting comic books for 35 years. I probably have about 10,000 comic books. When I was in college, I used to sell them for rent money. I still read them every week. And I actually used to publish them in the ’90s. At one point, I’m going to get back into writing them.

The Extras…