>> A new era of the Chicago reader is here.

The city's most recognizable alternative newspaper has focused on arts culture and investigations since its founding in 1971.

But a few years of financial hardship.

But the paper on a brief hiatus last December until now, the reader has a new leader who says they are here to stay.

Joining us to discuss the rears new direction is the paper's new editor-in-chief, Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist Sarah Conway.

Welcome back.

Thank you for your address on the gig.

Thank you, So tell us about the readers first edition back.

We've got the cover here.

Newegg who did I love that.

It's very, very reader.

Thank more.

Thank you.

We wanted to come back with a splash.

We are a 50 year plus publication.

>> And we move from publishing weekly to publishing a print monthly magazine.

So we're going to be at over 600 locations across the city every first Wednesday of the month.

And we are now a print monthly newspaper, which means that.

We are going to be bringing new features investigations, a culture, Kerry to calendar called Reader Radar, which is full of events from like civic things you should be involved in 2 concerts plays movies events that should be on your radar that we really want Chicagoans to see to get out and, you know, participate in the city the reader in many ways is still its classic self are still breathing.

Bringing you criticism reviews and news about what's going on in the city.

But our print monthly is really going to be something that we want as sort of this analog paper.

Product to literally live in your home.

We wanted to be something that readers can really sit with.

And I think all the buzz that goes on that we're all living on social media, a digital life and to have a product that we're not giving up on.

We still see value in having a a print publication and it will in in this in this new addition, the that just came out last week.

What are some of the stories that folks can read about in the latest?

My favorite of share with you a couple.

My fear is right.

There's a lot of really great content.

I think we have an amazing editorial staff, our writers in our editor's, some of them that Bennett, the paper for decades.

And I personally and so proud to be a part of a publication that has an intergenerational staff that, you know, is from all over the city and Israeli making a vested interest to be more representative of Chicago.

Look, we want to be a publication that is truly a city paper that you see yourselves in our pages.

Some of my favorite stories, I would say KT Proud is a features writer.

We have.

She's doing a series on.

It's called Just neighbors.

That's going to be looking at the city's complex interpreter, interdepartmental process dismantling encampments.

And Katie really wants to show the human light out those policies have on people experiencing homelessness in the city.

On that going to be an ongoing series.

We have.

We also started a new series on that is an accountability series about the quantum campus.

It's it's done by a contributor named Gray Lucas and our first story in that series is really looking at community perspectives of this mega development that we know, you know, acquired many tax dollars from the state and has, you know, many different people and entities coming to the That's another feature that is also just extremely the layout is is so beautiful.

We have really talented people on staff.

And then we also looked at a program that was from the poetry Foundation.

Was the adult poetry programming kind of taking a look at like the human impact of closing these programs in the ways that people participated in them.

So those are 3 stories and also to shout out knows the launch of our first calendar, like our events calendar, the future radar.

So that's another thing to look out in the print product of which, yeah, I know.

It's very exciting for so, you know, coming back to print first Wednesday of every month.

But we do journalism in print journalism, in particular.

>> Been taking some hits.

The Atlanta Journal Constitution discontinuing print at the end of last year.

What do you think its important to to maintain a print presents?

you know, how do we get the viewers, the readers, the listeners to come back?

So I think print is very important for a few reasons.

One, I think that print is also about accessibility.

You know, not everyone can read or access to digital news.

>> And I think that we also have this flurry of digital information and I think having a print product that we distribute throughout the city that we're going to expand distribution beyond the 600 plus sites that we have currently is we we can make sure that Chicagoans can access news, particularly city news.

I think secondly, that it's really important to maintain in this digital age as we know the rise of AI like the ever, you know, attention grabbing things from social media that we have print things that people can have physical media, that they can keep in their home that they can sit with and really, you know, take time to understand.

And so that's really what we want our print publication to do is to be something you have in your home that you're using as a guide, you know, to understand the city and for thing that you physically pass on to others.

But we are still very much a digital newsroom.

We publish stories daily and we're going to be expanding that coverage this year.

We're going to be leading into doing more news and political coverage as well investigations and features as part you know, the the I would say the footprint of the reader online.

>> So we know that Chicago reader been around, as you said, for more than half a century on its hands on years of recently of some financial turmoil, changing ownership.

At one point, you know, in that risk of closure.

But you're under new ownership now you've got noisy creek.

Tell us a little bit about that company and and how you know you and they sort of work together to deliver.

What we all know is alternative journalism Chicago.

I think this is very interesting as a I see myself as a local journalist.

Look, I love local news and very vested in local news because I think news is so important in our society.

>> It is like one of the entities that protects the public and I think shines a light on things.

And so.

Noisy creek is a network of old newspapers right now.

It is the Chicago reader, the Portland Mercury in the strangers.

So it's been very interesting to be part of a a company that's a national company, but it is really like a constellation of old newspapers that eventually is going to be lax, indicating news between them and so noisy.

Creeks approach, is they?

It's a decentralized model.

We have these autonomous old papers, which I think is very much in the legacy of what the reader is like.

The reader is the, you know, like weird strange.

And I think in a lot of ways subversive newspaper that's been around for, you know, 50 plus years in Chicago and and means so much to people.

It's like one of those papers that I think about my own relationship to it was really the first place that I read literary journalism that I saw, you know, investigations that we're looking at things in a slightly different way than I would say.

Traditional news looks at them.

But also, you know, my my old landlord, she grew up.

She was a teenager when the new the reader came out.

And so you have these whole generations of people even within a family that see this publication have a relationship with it.

And I think the thing I really value about creek is that they are invested in keeping the reader life that they see that old newspapers are critical part of American life of civic life and that they should exist and really creating a model that's more sustainable that they can before we let you go, 600 locations.

Where can one get a physical copy of the reader?

So are locations or cross universities in the city coffee shops.

We also are in libraries.

So probably many of the civic spaces that are in your neighborhood that you love.

You can also go to Chicago reader dot com and look at the map to find an exact spot.

There you go and grab your copy.

We have our bartch.

Our marsh hit faster.