Chicagoly

In an era of shrinking print media, Chicago is home to a new provincial magazine, Chicagoly, although hardly anyone seems to have noticed.

Chicagoly was first announced quietly last summer with the title of the Chicagoan which conjured memories of the last two magazine publishers to use that title, both glossy failures. The last Chicagoan magazine debuted in 1971 with high hopes, strong financial backing and a weak editorial product. The publisher, the local branch of the Rockefeller family, got tired of it and sold their assets to the publisher of Chicago magazine which exists today under different ownership.

Give the publisher credit for moniker originality. I can think of no other periodical of any consequence that uses an adjective instead of a noun or verb as a title. Still I would be greatly surprised if this begets a trend. Bostonly? New Yorkly? Big Applely??

While the name is original, the editorial product is purely derivative. This is just another lifestyle city magazine with nothing to differentiate it from similar journals like Chicago and Time Out Chicago. The inaugural issue had profiles of former Chicagoans Mark Grace and Joe Mantegna as well as a report on the state of the Boy Scouts and running on Chicago’s North Shore. This is safe content but hardly memorable. To the question: “read anything interesting lately?” It would be surprising if Chicagoly ever was the response; at least, based on the content of the inaugural issue.

Still, the publisher, Joe Coughlin, teases us with future prospects for something with more mettle. In his column, From the Publisher, be claims: “We have talented authors on the dig right now…” for powerful, indepth stories. He promises more fiction, reviews and hard hitting journalism. Certainly there is a need for such in Chicago, with the Tribune and Sun-Times both badly emaciated from declining revenue and the free weekly, the Reader, in similar straits. There has been a dearth of quality, professional investigative journalism in Chicago since the digital revolution asundered the old ink and paper business model. Chicagoly is free both in print and on-line and lacks much substantial advertising. It seems unlikely that it can survive on its own revenue streams much less expand its editorial product. Survival would seem to depend on endowment.

Chicagoly is published by Twentieth-Second Century Media which is the offspring of former investment banker and Republican Senatorial candidate Jack Ryan who was forced out of the nomination he had fairly won when Republican leaders discovered he enjoyed sex with his wife. Ryan’s exit, left Barack Obama with an easy path to the White House through the Senate. Chicago has a tradition of pols owning newspapers. The Chicago Inter-Ocean and the Chicago Daily News were once owned by ambitious men hoping to achieve office by using their papers as a voice. Yet Chicagoly doesn’t yet seem to be an avatar for Ryan. If Chicagoly is to grow into something worthwhile and survive more than a few issues, Ryan’s wallet is going to grow thinner but this maybe the only model for media companies if they are to offer any content worth reading and have an impact on Chicago’s cultural economy. Poetry Magazine is now a stable prosperous publishing company thanks to an endowment provided by an heir to the Libby forture. That would seem to be the only viable model for a high cost publication with a small market like Chicago.