Reader cofounder and original editor Bob Roth had some radical ideas about editors. He didn’t want them to prescribe what went into the paper, or to solicit it. He wanted the stories to crop up like some natural urban flora and make their way on their own to the Reader office. The editors’ jobs would […]
Tag: Bob Roth
Posted inFood & Drink
The Reader’s first food critic was a diabetic undergrad with an appetite for the undiscovered
T he Reader has covered food and restaurants in Chicago throughout its half-century existence, though not nearly as consistently or comprehensively as music, film, drama, or most of the other arts—certainly not every week when I came on as a starving editorial assistant way back in ’95. Back then there was a very occasional visual […]
Posted inOn Culture
No assignments, no deadlines, no promises, no job
It’s 1980, and I am unemployed. After giving up a staff writer job at the esteemed St. Petersburg Times to return to Chicago, I have found myself, as the saying goes, shit out of luck. Chicago has gone from four daily newspapers to two, and is awash in unemployed journalists, all more experienced than me. […]
Posted inOn Politics
The long haul
I’ve been writing for the Reader for so long that lots of you may think I’ve always been writing for the Reader. Like, you know, I hopped out of my mother’s womb with a pencil in my hand and a question or two for the doctor about TIFs. Not true—I didn’t have a pencil in […]
Posted inBlogs
The Sun-Times speaks with a new voice, as the Reader moves out
New owners at the Reader; a new editorial “we” at the Sun-Times.
Posted inBlogs
Steve Bogira is leaving the Reader
The long-form senior staff writer has been with the paper more than three decades.
Posted inNews & Politics
Bob Roth, co-owner, 1971-2007, on the Reader’s early days
‘All but one of our investors were unemployed friends from college’
Posted inBlogs
Lynda Barry — artist, inspirational speaker, ventriloquist
The multitalented Lynda Barry’s a hit at Comic-Con.
Posted inBlogs
The Reader has new owners
Chicago Reader and its sister Washington City Paper sold to Creative Loafing.
Posted inNews & Politics
“What kind of paper is this, anyway?”
Questions we’ve heard over and over in the last year.