City of Chicago orders removal of downtown newsracks prior to DNC

The Chicago mayor’s office ordered the removal of more than 80 multirack newspaper boxes that dispensed news publications to the downtown area, just prior to the city’s hosting of the Democratic National Convention in August 2024, according to local media.

The racks, installed per a 1996 city ordinance to consolidate and standardize Chicago’s disparate freestanding newspaper distribution boxes, had been used by free alternative and community papers and magazines such as Chicago Reader, South Side Weekly and Newcity to reach their audiences, especially in underserved communities, local media reported.

With the shift to digital formats, the racks were used less frequently, and some had become filled with trash or covered with graffiti.

Brian Hieggelke, the editor and publisher of Newcity, told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that the city did not inform him in advance of the decision, “in spite of decades of regular communications with the city and their vendor,” outdoor advertising company JCDecaux.

Hieggelke, who also heads the Chicago Newsrack Task Force established to facilitate communication between Chicago media outlets and the city about the racks, said he first received a report of a few newsracks being removed Aug. 7.

Then, on Aug. 16, after learning that more had been removed, he contacted JCDecaux. The firm’s representative replied: “City instructed us 2 weeks ago to permanently dismount all 83 newsracks. This is not a JCD decision. We only follow City’s directives. I was under the impression you were made aware by the City, before they instructed us to start with the dismounts.”

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s spokesperson was quoted by South Side Weekly Investigations Editor Jim Daley, in an Aug. 16 post on the social platform X, as saying that the decision to remove the racks was made “based on the public health and safety risks, as well as their deteriorating condition and limited use.”

Daley also quoted the spokesperson as saying that the publications were free to use their own individual newsracks. But an account in the Chicago Reader said news boxes cost anywhere between $200 and $250.

Solomon Lieberman, chief executive officer and publisher of the Chicago Reader, said in a post on X and in an email newsletter that the removals had a serious impact on the paper and the Chicago community. “Thousands of copies of the Reader have nowhere to go this week—copies that include advertising purchased months in advance by some of the most important arts-and-cultural organizations in the city,” Lieberman wrote.

The Reader’s editor-in-chief, Salem Collo-Julin, said to WBEZ that she had expected high amounts of foot traffic downtown with the DNC in Chicago and that not being able to distribute the newspapers was going to hurt ad revenue and distribution.

Hieggelke told the Tracker, “The immediate and unplanned loss of major distribution outlets is profoundly disruptive and will take months to rebuild, if not years,” adding that the loss of numerous copies of the magazine – which were not returned – was potentially in the tens of thousands of dollars.

He said that while the city had a right to change its mind about the newsrack program, “The manner in which they did was extremely disruptive to small and in many cases BIPOC businesses.”

“Distribution of news — through newsboxes or otherwise — is constitutionally protected,” wrote Seth Stern, director of advocacy for Freedom of the Press Foundation, of which the Tracker is a project. “If reporters’ findings show that the city violated the First Amendment, hopefully it’ll be held accountable in a court of law. Regardless, the city should be judged harshly in the court of public opinion.”

Johnson’s office and JCDecaux did not respond to requests for comment.