Journalism and Police Accountability: Perspectives from the Chicago Reader and the Chicago Torture Justice Center
Watch the Newberry Library virtual event from January 19, 2022
‘House of Screams’ revisited
The reporting is an icon of the paper’s journalism, but John Conroy wonders what it actually accomplished.
Police Torture in Chicago
An archive of articles by John Conroy on police torture, Jon Burge, and related issues
The Chicago Reader at 50: A half-century of revolutionary storytelling
A Chicago Reader archival exhibition hosted by the Newberry Library, from Wednesday, October 6, 2021 – Saturday, March 5, 2022
When the hog butchers left
Looking back 50 years to the closing of the Union Stockyards
It beats dancing about architecture
The Reader’s current music writer surveys all 50 years of the paper’s coverage and reports back.
Like Tinder in print
A look back at the love stories that started in the pages of the Reader, no swiping necessary
‘The narrative was the key’
The True years (great editors, pt. II)
What the first Reader theater review got wrong
A longtime critic and former editor provides the missing context.
From stage to page
An incomplete look at 50 years of Reader theater and dance coverage
‘Hello, woman of color’
On whiteness, journalism, and leading the most diverse staff in Reader history
The Reader’s first food critic was a diabetic undergrad with an appetite for the undiscovered
Most people remember Sally Banes for her prodigious dance writing, but she was the paper’s prodigious chowhound first.
50th Anniversary Button Pack, in partnership with Busy Beaver Button Co.
A groovy button pack celebrating five decades of the Reader.
NEW Reader 50 Merchandise
Celebrate the Reader in style. Every purchase from our store supports independent media.
Reader House Parties
We are celebrating 50 years of the Reader, and your support will ensure another 50 years.
Two priests, a rabbi, and the Sex Pig
My 25 years shooting for the Reader
50 years of a Chicago weekly
The history of the Reader reflects the larger history of newspaper publishing in the United States. This timeline traces the paper’s changing fortunes over the course of a half-century.
Queer history through the eyes of the Reader
A reflection on how LGBTQ+ issues, subjects, and writers have appeared on the paper’s pages over the last five decades.