ChicagoNow was a
blogging site managed by
Tribune Publishing, owner of the print ''
Chicago Tribune
The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television a ...
'' newspaper. It featured a network of blogs of international, national, and local interest on a variety of topics ranging from crime to public schools to politics and diplomacy.
Notable ChicagoNow contributors included the staff of the ''
Chicago Reporter'', and
Shimer College
Shimer Great Books School (pronounced ) is a Great Books college that is part of North Central College in Naperville, Illinois. Prior to 2017, Shimer was an independent, accredited college on the south side of Chicago, with a history of being ...
president
Susan Henking.
On August 18th, 2022, the site was shut down with no announcement.
History
ChicagoNow was launched in August 2009.
Its launch coincided with the Tribune company's bankruptcy.
As a newspaper-run blogging community, with the initial tagline "a blog by and for locals", it represented what one observer called "a new value proposition for newspapers".
ChicagoNow utilized
Movable Type
Movable type (US English; moveable type in British English) is the system and technology of printing and typography that uses movable components to reproduce the elements of a document (usually individual alphanumeric characters or punctuation m ...
as its blogging platform when it first launched but switched to
WordPress
WordPress (WP or WordPress.org) is a free and open-source content management system (CMS) written in hypertext preprocessor language and paired with a MySQL or MariaDB database with supported HTTPS. Features include a plugin architecture ...
in 2011.
The website of the ''Tribune'' daily ''
RedEye'', which later moved to its own domain, was initially hosted on ChicagoNow.
After the acquisition of the Tribune by Alden Global Capital ChicagoNow was shut down without warning on August 18, 2022.
Reception
In April 2010, the World Editors Forum described ChicagoNow as a "hyperlocal blog network" that has "a personal quality that many larger newspapers lack."
In September 2010, ''
Time Out Chicago
''Time Out'' is a global magazine published by Time Out Group. ''Time Out'' started as a London-only publication in 1968 and has expanded its editorial recommendations to 328 cities in 58 countries worldwide.
In 2012, the London edition beca ...
'' criticized ChicagoNow for hosting an unidentified police officer in what they called "a hate-filled, racist rant by blogger Joe the Cop, entitled The ghetto shooting template, for three days and counting now." ChicagoNow removed the posts in question, stating that while they don't edit posts, they reserve the right to remove them.
References
External links
*
Tribune Media Group's ChicagoNow 2009 introduction
American blogs
Tribune Publishing
Internet properties established in 2009
Internet properties disestablished in 2022
2009 establishments in Illinois
{{Chicago-stub