Windy City Times

About Windy City Times

Windy City Times is an LGBTQ news publication based in Chicago, Illinois, that published its first issue on September 26, 1985. For 35 years it appeared in print as Chicago's LGBTQ newspaper of record before moving to a digital-only format in October 2020, where its news and feature coverage continues. Owned by Windy City Media Group, the publication has chronicled Chicago's LGBTQ community through the AIDS crisis, the fight for civil rights, and the marriage-equality era. Its digital home is windycitytimes.com.

Overview

Windy City Times is an LGBTQ newspaper and digital news publication in Chicago. It was a weekly (later biweekly) print newspaper from its founding in September 1985 until the print edition ceased on September 30, 2020, after which it continued as a digital-only publication. The paper was for many years the lone surviving LGBTQ newspaper in Chicago, and it remains one of roughly two dozen LGBTQ print-originated news publications left in the United States. Windy City Media Group, its owner, also published the sister nightlife publication Nightspots.

Founding in 1985

Windy City Times was founded by four people: Jeff McCourt, Bob Bearden, Drew Badanish, and Tracy Baim. The publication was a breakaway from GayLife, a ten-year-old weekly gay newspaper owned by local businessman Chuck Renslow. Baim had been GayLife's managing editor; she joined with McCourt, Bearden, and Badanish, who each put up $10,000 to start the new paper. The small staff worked out of a third-floor walk-up on Melrose Street just west of Lake Michigan, in Chicago's East Lakeview neighborhood, producing a weekly newspaper by and for the LGBTQ community, which at the time was generally referred to as the gay and lesbian community. The first issue appeared on September 26, 1985, the same month that President Reagan publicly mentioned AIDS for the first time.

Birth in the AIDS crisis

Windy City Times was born in the middle of a war zone. When the paper launched in September 1985, the AIDS epidemic was devastating the gay community, and Chicago was among the cities where the disease had taken a foothold. As Tracy Baim later recalled of her entry into gay media, when she started in 1984 there were fewer than 100 cases of AIDS in Chicago, and the paper's early years coincided with the death of Rock Hudson, who admitted he had AIDS shortly before his death, and with stories of experimental AIDS treatments circulating through Chicago's gay community. The paper covered the epidemic while also documenting the community's political organizing, including the fight for a Chicago gay rights ordinance. In 1988, the paper's coverage of the Chicago gay rights ordinance won it its first Peter Lisagor Award for outstanding journalism.

The newspaper war with Outlines

Within two years of the founding, the partnership fractured. Bob Bearden fell sick with HIV soon after the launch; his partner Jeff McCourt purchased Drew Badanish's shares and became the sole owner after Bearden died of AIDS complications in early 1987. In May 1987, Tracy Baim left the paper, joined by the majority of the staff, and in June they started a rival newspaper, Outlines. Thus began what Chicago media observers called the city's last great newspaper war: a 13-year rivalry between Windy City Times and Outlines as the two primary LGBTQ newspapers in the Chicago region. Outlines, which began as a weekly and later became a monthly, went on to launch Nightlines (later Nightspots), BLACKlines, En La Vida, Clout!, the OUT! Guide, Identity, and other LGBTQ publications, and also purchased a radio station it renamed Windy City Radio.

Reunification in 2000

By the late 1990s, Windy City Times suffered another staff walkout, and after winning a legal battle that devastated the business financially, McCourt closed the paper in the summer of 2000. Tracy Baim and her investors came to the rescue, buying the Windy City Times trademark and merging Outlines into it. Baim became publisher of the merged publication and remains the majority owner of Windy City Times through Windy City Media Group. The merger ended the 13-year newspaper war and reunited the two publications under single ownership, with Baim at the helm.

Awards and recognition

Over its four decades, Windy City Times has earned significant recognition for its journalism. In 1988, its coverage of the Chicago gay rights ordinance won the paper's first Peter Lisagor Award for outstanding journalism, the first of multiple Lisagor honors. In December 2021, NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ Journalists named Windy City Times the recipient of its Legacy Award, created to recognize a publication that has exhibited innovative, high-quality, and sustained news coverage of the LGBTQ community over an extended period. In October 2020, Windy City Times was inducted into the Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame.

Notable contributors

The paper's pages carried work from a notable roster of Chicago writers and cultural figures. Novelist Achy Obejas, columnist Jon-Henri Damski, and the legendary Studs Terkel were among the contributors who wrote for the paper over the years. The breadth of its contributor base, from community columnists to nationally known authors and broadcasters, reflected the paper's role as a cultural institution of the Chicago LGBTQ community as well as a news source.

Transition to new leadership

In 2018, Tracy Baim became publisher of the Chicago Reader, and her longtime staff took over day-to-day operations of Windy City Times. Terri Klinsky became publisher, Andrew Davis became executive editor, and Matt Simonette became managing editor (and later publisher), supported by art director Kirk Williamson, director of new media Jean Albright, and bookkeeper Ripley Caine. Baim remained majority owner of Windy City Media Group while the next generation of the paper's leadership ran the publication.

End of the print edition

On September 9, 2020, Windy City Media Group announced that the biweekly print edition would cease as of September 30, 2020. The September 30 edition, marking the paper's 35th anniversary, was its last regular free-standing print issue; a special collector's edition included a retrospective of the previous 35 years. The decision was driven by economics: the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on the paper's core entertainment advertisers made continuing a print paper untenable. Three of the paper's five employees were furloughed as the company pivoted to digital. As Baim put it at the time, Windy City Times was not closing, but losing the print paper was painful, because the economics of print were simply not sustainable.

Chicago's lone LGBTQ newspaper

Windy City Times became Chicago's only remaining LGBTQ newsweekly in April 2010, when its rival the Chicago Free Press folded. From that point until the end of print in 2020, it stood alone as the city's LGBTQ paper of record. The paper's 25th anniversary in 2010 was marked with a special issue featuring front pages from the weekly's first year and columns from writers who had worked in gay media in the 1980s. At 40 years, celebrated in 2025, the publication's history spans the entire modern arc of the LGBTQ movement, from the depths of the AIDS crisis to marriage equality and beyond.

Reading Windy City Times today

Windy City Times continues to publish news and feature coverage digitally at windycitytimes.com (and windycitymediagroup.com), covering LGBTQ news in Chicago and beyond, arts and culture, and community events. As one of about two dozen LGBTQ newspapers still publishing in the United States, it remains a vital chronicle of Chicago's LGBTQ community and a four-decade archive of its history, now entering its digital-only era.