Noisy Creek, owner of alt-weeklies in Seattle and Portland, acquires the Chicago Reader

After years of financial struggles and narrowly avoiding closure at the start of 2025, the Chicago Reader is getting another lifeline.

On Tuesday, the nonprofit alt-weekly known for covering arts and culture in the city announced it had been acquired by Noisy Creek, a media company founded last year by Brady Walkinshaw, the former CEO of climate news site Grist and a former Washington state representative. (The Reader describes the news as “joining the Noisy Creek network” while the Chicago Tribune called it an acquisition under undisclosed terms.) Noisy Creek launched in 2024 and acquired Seattle alt-weekly The Stranger and the Portland Mercury that summer. In its announcement, The Reader said that it will maintain editorial control over its journalism.

Noisy Creek appears to have helped stabilize its acquired publications. The Stranger and the Mercury both resumed publishing print editions this past April, five years after they’d halted issues due to pandemic-induced advertising revenue loss.

Walkinshaw envisions local media achieving financial sustainability through a mix of advertising, subscription, and events revenue, as well as philanthropic support, he told Chicago Tribune reporter (and 2025 Nieman Fellow) Darcel Rockett.

“We hope what we’re doing is going to be able to give the Reader the runway that it needs … because it’s truly one of the most beloved and iconic alternative weeklies in America,” Walkinshaw said. “We have every intention to keep it hyper-local, with local leadership, local partners. What we’re bringing is capital, and a model that can support it.”

Noisy Creek — which will grow from 55 to about 80 employees with the acquisition of the Reader — also owns event calendar platform EverOut and ticketing service Bold Type Tickets. In its announcement, the Reader says the service will help the outlet diversify its revenue streams and bring readers “closer to supporting the venues and artists that have come to life in the pages of the Reader for decades.” Noisy Creek aims to launch the ticketing service in Chicago in early 2026.

The Chicago Reader has changed hands several times since its founding in 1971 and operates in a competitive media market that boasts 100 local news outlets. It became a nonprofit in May 2022 and has struggled to find its financial footing. (The company had a $400,000 budget deficit in 2023, according to its tax filings, and around $3.3 million in income.) In January 2025, the company laid off six employees and its CEO resigned. The publication fought off closure with a “Save The Reader” fundraising campaign that raised more than $300,000 by April. But the “financial turmoil” continued, according to a statement by the Chicago Reader Union about the Noisy Creek acquisition, and three union members recently accepted voluntary buyouts. The union also said Noisy Creek is planning additional layoffs that “would reduce the size of the Reader’s editorial department by more than 25 percent in all.”

“The Reader has been at risk of shutting down too many times over the years,” the alt-weekly wrote in its announcement on Tuesday. But it hopes the acquisition will help them turn the page. “After half a century, the Reader is still here. We’re not going anywhere. We’ll see you in the streets.”

Read more in the Chicago Tribune here.