Chicago Reader
While annual revenue reached an all-time high of $22.6 million in 2002,[3] double what it had been a decade earlier, profits and readership then went into steep decline, and ownership changed several times between 2007 and 2018.On June 22, 2020, the Reader, citing a 90% drop in advertising revenue due to COVID-19 shutdowns, announced that it was pivoting from a weekly to a biweekly print schedule, with a renewed focus on digital content and storytelling and a refreshed special issues calendar.[11] The Reader began experimenting with electronic distribution in 1995 with an automated telephone service called "SpaceFinder", which offered search and "faxback" delivery of the paper's apartment rental ads, one of its most important franchises.Also in 1996 the Reader partnered with Yahoo to bring its entertainment listings online and introduced a Web site and an AOL user area built around its popular syndicated column "The Straight Dope"."[14] He also suggested the Reader had grown complacent "because it was still raking in ad profits through the early 2000s" and its troubles were aggravated by a 2004 makeover that included "features on fashion" and a "tattooed, twenty-seven-year-old stripper" writing a late-night party column.This lawsuit led to the sale of the Reader and its sibling, Washington City Paper, to Creative Loafing in July 2007, publisher of alternative weeklies in Atlanta, Georgia; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Tampa and Sarasota, Florida.[16] In August 2009, the bankruptcy court awarded the company to Creative Loafing's chief creditor, Atalaya Capital Management,[17] which had loaned $30 million to pay for most of the purchase price for the Reader and the Washington City Paper.[18] In late 2007, under a budget cutback imposed by the new owners at Creative Loafing, the Reader laid off several of its most experienced journalists, including John Conroy, Harold Henderson, Tori Marlan and Steve Bogira.[19] The paper had de-emphasized the tradition of offbeat feature stories in favor of theme issues and aggressive, opinionated reporting on city government, for example its extensive coverage of tax increment financing (TIFs) by Ben Joravsky, who has been a staff writer since the 1980s.[25] In February 2018 Malooley was fired by phone at O'Hare Airport as he returned from his honeymoon[26] by newly appointed Executive Editor Mark Konkol.[27] Konkol was fired by Sun-Times Media only 19 days after his appointment, following the publication of a controversial editorial cartoon that was deemed to be race baiting.On June 22, 2020, the Reader, citing a 90% drop in advertising revenue due to COVID-19 shutdowns, announced that it was pivoting from a weekly to a biweekly print schedule, with a renewed focus on digital content and storytelling and a refreshed special issues calendar.The transfer had been delayed by a debilitating public dispute between publisher Tracy Baim and then-editor in chief Karen Hawkins on one side, and co-owner Leonard Goodman on the other, in 2021 and 2022.Goodman, who had submitted a semi-regular column for the Reader since he and Higginbottom acquired the newspaper, wrote one (edited by Hawkins) in November 2021 about his hesitancy to vaccinate his young daughter against COVID-19.[41] In January 2025, Lieberman resigned, and the RICJ announced a round of layoffs due to "a combination of financial losses, operational challenges, and external pressures [that] has brought the Reader to an imminent risk of closure.Like many alternative weeklies, the Reader relied heavily on coverage and extensive listings of arts and cultural events, especially live music, film, and theater.Reader articles by freelance writer David Moberg are credited with helping to elect Chicago's first black mayor, the late Harold Washington.[44] The Reader was perhaps best known for its deep, immersive style of literary journalism, publishing long, detailed cover stories, often on subjects that had little to do with the news of the day.Contributor Lee Sandlin's two-part 1997 essay, “Losing the War,”[49] was later adapted for broadcast by the public radio show This American Life[50] and it was anthologized in a 2007 collection, The New Kings of Nonfiction.In 2004, a redesign by the Barcelona, Spain, firm of Jardi + Utensil introduced a new logo and extensive use of color, including a magazine-style cover.A post-redesign checkup several months later revealed a robust page count, innovations in social media and reader engagement, and strong commitment from advertisers.[56] "The Straight Dope", by the pseudonymous[57] Cecil Adams, was the Chicago Reader's first weekly column and one of the first features to be widely syndicated in the alternative press, at one time appearing in 35 papers.In 1984, Chicago Review Press published The Straight Dope, a compilation of columns; the cover named Cecil Adams as author and Zotti as editor.