Founded in 1847, The Chicago Tribune is formerly self-styled as the “World’s Greatest Newspaper”. It also remains to be the most-read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region. The paper has the sixth-highest circulation for American newspapers in 2017. The subscription for the Chicago Tribune costs $0.99 for 4 weeks.

The Illinois Times was founded in 1975. Later on it was acquired by Fletcher Farrar Sr. in 1977. Two years after the death of the Senior Farrar, his son sold the paper and reacquired it in 2002. In recent years, Illinois Times has won bagged recognition for its investigative journalism, garnering statewide and national awards, as well as for breaking local and statewide news, helping set the agenda for the capital city of a major Midwestern State.

The Chicago Sun-Times is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group. The paper has the second largest circulation, after the Chicago Tribune, among Chicago newspapers. The modern paper grew out of the 1948 merger of the Chicago Sun and the Chicago Daily Times. Ownership of the paper has changed hands numerous times, including twice in the late 2010s. Journalists at the Chicago Sun-Times received eight Pulitzer prizes.

The newspaper’s name is derived from the Greek words “panta” and “grapho”, which has a combined meaning of “write all things”. The Pantagraph was founded by Bloomington businessman Jesse W. Fell on January 12, 1837, making it the oldest-running business in McLean County. The paper was originally called The Bloomington Observer and McLean County Advocate. Through the years, the newspaper went through several name changes like: The Whig, The Intelligencer, The Daily Pantagraph and The Pantagraph in 1985, finally shortened to Pantagraph in 2006 and finally changing it back to The Pantagraph in 2008.

The newspaper traces its history to the Urbana Union, founded in 1852. By the turn of the century, it had moved to Champaign and became the Champaign Daily News. David W. Stevick, owner and publisher of the Daily News, bought the Champaign Daily News in 1919 and merged it into the current paper. But in 1979, the paper’s rival, the Champaign-Urbana Courier, ended publication, which left Champaign with only one daily newspaper. From its founding day until June 2009, the News-Gazette published its main edition in the afternoon. And since November 2019, it is published daily from Tuesday Sunday.

The oldest ancestor of the Journal Star, the Peoria Daily Transcript, was founded by N.C Nason and was first published on December 17, 1855. The Peoria Journal was founded as an afternoon paper by Eugene F. Baldwin and was first published on December 3, 1877. The Journal Star was first owned locally, then employee-owned and it became a Copley Press entity in 1996. But in 2007, the paper was sold to Fairport, New York-based GateHouse Media.

The Northwest Herald is the flagship title of Shaw Media. Shaw Newspapers first entered McHenry County in 1948, when it bought the Woodstock Sentinel. In 1983, Shaw Newspapers acquired the Cardinal Free Press. Shaw merged the McHenry County papers, in 1985, into the Northwest Herald, a daily and Saturday newspaper. The company added a Sunday edition on March 12, 1989, and became McHenry County’s first hometown, seven-day newspaper.

The Daily Herald is the namesake of the Daily Herald Media Group, and it is the leading subsidiary of Paddock Publications. The paper started in 1871 and was independently owned and managed by four generations of the Paddock Family. But in 2018, the Paddock family sold its share of the paper to its employees through an employee stock ownership plan.

The Chicago Reader was founded by a group of friends (Robert A. Roth, Robert E. McCamant, Thomas J. Rehwaldt and Thomas K. Yoder) from Carleton College. They scraped together about $16,000 in capital and published the first issue on October 1, 1971 with 16 pages. The paper is noted for its literary style of journalism and coverage of the arts, particularly in film and theater.

The Belleville News-Democrat was founded in 1858 as the Weekly Democrat. The paper was merged with the Belleville in the early 1860s to become the Belleville News-Democrat. It was a family-owned newspaper until 1972, then it was purchased by Capital Cities Communications. When Disney acquired Capital Cities, it briefly owned the News-Democrat until Knight-Ridder acquired the newspaper in 1997. The paper has been published under various names for 150 years.