I’ve been thinking a lot about Newcity in the digital realm lately. Specifically, I’ve begun writing our main email newsletter and, as part of that, launched a corresponding “Today in the Culture” feature that aggregates the arts news relevant to Chicago. We’ve increased its frequency from once a week to three times a week, on our way to a daily weekday feature expected in March, maybe by the time you read this. (Sign up at Newcity.com if you’re interested.) In addition, our film editor Ray Pride has launched a weekly online column, “Talking Screens,” that takes an informed look at all the ways we’re now engaging with cinematic storytelling, whether film, television or streaming, and suggests the very best things to watch. You can read it at NewcityFilm.com.
The interplay between print and digital publishing is one of the satisfying travails of this profession. Print publishing allows us to constantly strive to amaze you with variations of proven narrative forms and visual traditions in a realm with a 358-year history and hundreds of exemplars to humble and inspire us. Digital publishing, an invention less than a lifetime old, demands constant invention and experimentation.
The March issue of Newcity is usually our Design 50 issue, but with the pandemic putting so much cultural activity on hold, we’ve departed from our normal Leaders of Chicago Culture schedule and develop new features with a plan to bring it all back again next year. Meanwhile, we continue to contemplate our world in the context of our thirty-fifth anniversary with my story on the evolution of local media over that time, but also in our interview with Haki R. Madhubuti, a Chicago cultural treasure who Newcity first featured on our cover back in the early nineties.
I hope you’ll read this issue and if you’re not yet a print subscriber, find the inspiration to do so. (Visit NewcityShop.com.) As my article on Chicago media might suggest, our future depends on it. And with your commitment to us, we’ll commit to working every day to make this the finest magazine that Chicago has ever read. Maybe we’ll even amaze you.
BRIAN HIEGGELKE
Look for Newcity’s March 2021 print edition at over 300 Chicago-area locations this week or subscribe to the print edition at Newcityshop.com.
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