Shepherd Express

About Shepherd Express

The Shepherd Express is Milwaukee's alternative newsweekly and one of America's few remaining locally owned alternative papers. Originating in May 1982 as the Crazy Shepherd — a scrappy student publication named for a line in Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" — it became the Shepherd Express through a 1987 merger with the Express, a monthly music paper, and went weekly the following year. Today it publishes at shepherdexpress.com, offering investigative reporting, satire, and in-depth coverage of Milwaukee's urban environment, arts, music, dining, and culture. Published since 1997 by Louis Fortis, a Ph.D. economist and former member of the Wisconsin State Assembly, the Express has served Milwaukee for more than four decades — founder of the Milwaukee International Film Festival, publisher of the official gate guide to Summerfest, and a perennially decorated member of the alternative press.

History

The paper's origins trace to 1982, when a group of University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee students — among them Jeff Hansen, Doug Hissom, and Joe Porubcan — launched the Crazy Shepherd from a series of rented flats near campus. The name came from Allen Ginsberg's poem "Footnotes to Howl": "Holy the crazy shepherds of rebellion." Appearing sporadically at first, the paper eventually settled into a monthly schedule. Several of its founders went on to careers in news media, including Jim McCarter, publisher of Detroit's Metro Times; Bill Conroy, editor of the San Antonio Business Journal; and Bill Lueders, later news editor at Isthmus in Madison.

In 1987, the Crazy Shepherd merged with the Express, a monthly music paper founded in 1979 by Kevn Kinney and David Luhrssen. Kinney would go on to form the rock band Drivin' N' Cryin' in Atlanta; Luhrssen returned to the Shepherd Express in late 1994 as arts and entertainment editor, a post he still holds. The merged paper took the name Shepherd Express, and in 1988 it went from a monthly to a weekly — becoming the city's full-fledged alternative newsweekly.

Ownership and leadership

The Shepherd Express has been published since 1997 by Louis Fortis, a Ph.D. economist, international consultant, and former member of the Wisconsin State Assembly. Fortis bought the paper at a time when alternative weeklies were still thriving on classified and display advertising, and he has kept it locally owned through the industry's convulsions — a distinction the paper wears proudly as one of America's few locally owned alternative newsweeklies.

In 1999, the Express merged with its crosstown rival, The Metro, forming the Shepherd Express Metro — a consolidation that created a single strong alternative voice in what had become, after the 1995 merger of the Milwaukee Journal and Sentinel, a one-daily-paper town. The combined weekly served a readership estimated at about 250,000. In later years the paper transitioned from weekly print to a monthly magazine format, continuing its journalism through print and its website.

Editorial approach

The Express describes its approach as in-depth analysis of trends and developments in the urban environment through investigative reporting, commentary, and feature stories — putting a different perspective on the issues that challenge a Midwest urban area in the twenty-first century: education, race relations, transportation, economics, environment, and health. Its editorial voice mixes hard-nosed investigation with satire and high-quality writing, in the classic alternative-weekly tradition.

The paper earned national media attention early on when Timothy W. Maier wrote a series of articles about former Milwaukee police officer Lawrencia "Bambi" Bembenek, producing new evidence that questioned the conviction of one of Wisconsin's most famous inmates — an example of the local investigative reporting that has defined the paper's identity.

Coverage and sections

The Shepherd Express covers local politics and investigative news, arts and entertainment, music, film, dining, and high culture, along with what has been described as the most complete calendar of events listings in Milwaukee. In entertainment, it is the city's guide to local music, arts, movies, dining, and high culture. The paper publishes the official gate guide to Summerfest, America's largest music festival, and an annual Inside Milwaukee City Guide covering food, festivals, music, shopping, and life in metropolitan Milwaukee.

The paper's music coverage has been especially celebrated: it has been recognized many times as "Best Music Newspaper" by the Wisconsin Area Music Awards. Its news scope extends beyond the city line — it has won awards for environmental reporting on issues concerning the entire state of Wisconsin.

Readership and distribution

In its weekly heyday, the Express printed 72,000 issues a week, reaching an estimated 244,500 readers — nearly 20 percent of the metro market — with its website drawing an additional 90,000 unique visitors a month. In pre-pandemic times, the weekly circulated about 60,000 copies per issue at more than 1,200 locations. At its peak it was described as Wisconsin's third most read publication.

The paper has marked its anniversaries with characteristic swagger: its columnists noted 40 years of publication in 2022, and longtime arts editor David Luhrssen has now spent more than 30 years with the publication — a stretch that connects the paper's zine-era origins to the present.

Digital presence

The paper's website, shepherdexpress.com, carries its daily journalism, event calendars, and archives, and it publishes a free daily e-newsletter delivering Milwaukee's latest local news, restaurants, music, arts, entertainment, and events to inboxes every weekday, plus a Week in Review email on Saturdays. The site has been central to the paper's strategy since the mid-2000s, when it expanded its online presence.

In 2026 the paper launched the Friends of the Shepherd Express, a membership program starting at nine dollars a month offering exclusive perks — an appeal to readers to help support independent local journalism and expand the paper's efforts.

Civic institutions the paper built

The Shepherd Express has been more than a newspaper — it has been a civic institution-builder. It founded the Milwaukee International Film Festival, which grew into one of the region's premier cultural events. It publishes the official gate guide to Summerfest, placing its journalism in the hands of hundreds of thousands of festival-goers each year. Its annual Inside Milwaukee City Guide has long been the newcomer's bible to the city.

These ventures reflect the alternative-weekly model at its best: a paper embedded in its city's cultural life, not just reporting on it but helping to produce it.

Awards and recognition

The Shepherd Express has won numerous awards for editorial and design achievement over the decades, including repeated recognition as "Best Music Newspaper" by the Wisconsin Area Music Awards and honors for its investigative and environmental reporting. Its advertising operation has also been decorated, with national awards including the Newspaper Association of America's New Media Edge Award for best advertising campaign.

The paper has been a longtime member of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies (now the Association of Alternative Newsmedia), and its staffers have been fixtures of Milwaukee's media scene — Luhrssen alone has written or co-written more than a dozen books on subjects from the Vietnam War on film to the oral history of Milwaukee punk rock.

Challenges and outlook

The Express has navigated the same collapse of print advertising that decimated alternative weeklies nationwide — a pressure that forced its transition from weekly to monthly print and pushed it toward reader-supported models like its Friends of the Shepherd Express membership program. The paper remains locally owned in an era when most surviving alt-weeklies have been absorbed by chains or converted to nonprofits.

Its outlook rests on the loyalty of Milwaukee readers who have kept an independent alternative voice alive for more than forty years — from the Crazy Shepherd's rented flats to the present — and on the paper's continuing claim that a Midwest urban area needs a publication willing to investigate its institutions and satirize its foibles. As the paper itself puts it, it has been Milwaukee's source for independent local journalism for four decades, and it intends to keep going.