Chicago Media is Having a Moment 🍋

Hey, Neighbor,

Ever since moving here in 2017, I’ve felt that Chicago has a narrative problem—and no, I’m not talking about what a Fox News chyron might lead you to believe.1

The city has a rich history of exporting its culture to the world, from The Bear to Stephen Colbert.2 As friendly neighborhood historian Sherman “Dilla” Thomas likes to say, “Everything dope about America comes from Chicago” (Pope Leo, take a bow).

But I find the city has a hard time stringing its success stories into a coherent narrative—that you can create something long-lasting, and you can do it here.

Chicagoans don’t like asking for attention, even when they’re operating at the top of their respective craft. Nevertheless, its media makers are having a moment, from Lyrical Lemonade launching an Internet-native network to The Onion kickstarting an Alex Jones-less Infowars.

That moment deserves some recognition…including our neighbors pulling off collaborations with everyone from a beloved camera company to folk singer Noah Kahan.

Here’s Five Things I Think (I Think), with a twist. Plus: An update from the studio.3

— NGL

P.S. Last letter, we interviewed Obsession (2026) director Curry Barker. You can watch, read, and listen to the conversation here.

1. Lyrical Lemonade launches Lyrical Lemonade TV (LLTV). Cole Bennett has a case to make as the world’s most famous music video director. But when he started the Lyrical Lemonade YouTube channel in 2013, it’s hard to think the Chicagoland filmmaker knew that he’d launch the careers of an entire generation of artists—before ultimately directing everyone from Tyler, the Creator to Jack Black.

A decade-plus in, Lyrical is becoming a full-fledged network, partnering with Lighthouse Studios (an imprint of creator talent management company Whalar) to supercharge its second channel. “The next phase is about programming, building 14 recurring shows each week and 672 episodes a year, that follow a television-like cadence, but are native to the internet,” Whalar CEO Neil Waller told Fast Company.

Will every show hit? Time will tell. Nevertheless, LLTV is investing in local talent, from an artist interview series with Sarah Kolli to “Chloe Explains” with Chloe Forero.

Years after Cole turned down $30 million and kept Lyrical in Chicago, the team is doubling down on the Windy City.

2. The Onion casting veteran comedian Tim Heidecker as Alex Jones’ successor will feed families. He’s no Area Man, but Heidecker debuted his impersonation on May 1 to near-universal approval, taking the conspiracy-peddling reins of Jones’ infamous media outlet, Infowars, and answering listener calls—gravelly voice and all.

First time hearing about any of this? A quick catch-up:

• In the years following the tragic Sandy Hook school shooting in 2012, Jones repeatedly claimed the incident was faked (twenty children and six staff members were killed).

• Parents of the slain children sued Jones, and in 2022, a Texas court ordered Jones to pay the families $1.4 billion—a record defamation award.

• Jones filed for bankruptcy, and with Infowars facing liquidation, The Onion swooped in to buy it in 2024.

Jones has continued to drag things out in the courts, and after years of waiting to turn Infowars into a parody of itself, The Onion will have to wait a littler longer. In the meantime, the West Town-based media company can rest its laurels on passing 80,000 print subscribers.

3. The Chicago Tribune and Block Club Chicago win national awards for ICE raid coverage. For the first time since 2022, The Tribune won a Pulitzer Prize—an award often regarded as the highest honor in journalism.

Here’s what the jury wrote on May 4:

“For its powerful coverage of the Trump administration’s militarized immigration sweep of the city that described in vivid, muscular prose how the siege-like incursion of ICE agents unified Chicagoans in resistance.”

A week later, nonprofit newsroom Block Club Chicago took home first place at the 22nd Richard H. Driehaus Foundation Awards for Investigative Journalism. The award specifically highlighted Block Club’s project “Chicago Under Siege.”

4. Legendary camera company Leica opens Mag Mile store. To celebrate its grand opening, Leica tapped four local photographers (including two neighbors, Steven Schultz and Nolis Anderson) to film intimate portraits of their lives behind the lens.

5. GKOH, meet Folk Malone. Noah Kahan released his new album, The Great Divide, in late April. As part of the rollout, neighbor Gracie Koh directed a campaign for Kahan—sharing that the singer holds a superpower for saying “the hard stuff out loud.”

Following the warm reception to our “Man in Bean” doc, we’ve been hard at work on our next longform investigation.

I’ll have more to say on this subject soon. But, candidly, given the limits we face as a small creative studio, I’ve been considering pulling back on this letter—focusing the majority of my time on our upcoming video slate.

So…what does that mean? OFFLINE isn’t going anywhere, and we’re currently on track to release the first print issue in August. Chalk this up as shifting priorities as we continue to grow.

My question for you, dear neighbor, is this:

Whatever direction we go, we’ll continue to share event updates over text and on Luma. See ya offline.

Thanks for reading! Shoot us a reply, comment, or DM if anything resonated with you in particular—we respond to them all.