History Of The Southwest News-Herald
What started out as a light-hearted publishing venture over a 1920's street car controversy has blossomed into Chicago's best and largest circulation community newspaper — The Southwest News-Herald. The News-Herald, which delivers the latest in local new and opinion every Thursday to Chicago's Southwest Side, traces its newspaper lineage to "Ain't We Got Fun",
a publication started in 1924 by three local businessmen who decided to battle what they said was the bias of the Advocate-Review, which was the dominant paper of the day on the Southwest Side. The controversy concerned a proposal to push existing street car lines on Kedzie Avenue south to the city limits at 87th Street. The only problem was that Marquette Park, the crown jewel of Southwest Side parks, lay directly in the path of progress. "Ain't We Got Fun", "published once in a while in the interest of all at the expense of a few" as its editors proclaimed, echoed popular feelings by arguing that allowing street cars and commercial trucks to pass through the heart of Marquette Park would seriously damage its aesthetic appeal. The editors were originally convinced that "Ain't We Got Fun" would be a short-lived publishing venture that would cease when the street car issue was resolved, and that they would soon be back in their daily business routines. In fact, the first issue proclaimed, "This is our first issue and may be our last, so read every word of it." Their adherence to journalism's basic principles of truth and accuracy had touched a nerve in the community, and they quickly found that "Ain't We Got Fun's" popularity was sweeping the Southwest Side like a prairie brush fire. And so it began. "Ain't We Got Fun" and its successors, the Liberty Bell, South Side News and Southwest News, built up a solid circulation, while other papers like the Advocate-Review ended on the ash heap of local history. But the climactic point in News-Herald history was yet to come. In 1945 , a young, enterprising journalist/businessman purchased the Southwest News and combined it with the Gage Park Herald in a bold attempt to cover the Southwest Side like no other newspaper had done before. Edward Vondrak, along with his wife Daisy, set their new Southwest News-Herald on a course that would be the envy of many in the community newspaper industry. Together, they carefully crafted a newspaper committed to grassroots journalism: a newspaper that realizes the foundation on which the common man and woman are built, and upon which they thrive. They assembled a professional staff to carry out their plans, and built a weekly wealth of information that chronicles the Southwest Side's news of business, industry, politics, youth, churches, schools, civic groups, social clubs, sports and more. And it all paid off. As Chicago's Southwest Side grew from its semi-rural beginnings to become a stable successful area with high levels of employment and income, the News-Herald grew into what it is today: the unquestioned leader of Chicago's community press. Over the years, when the need arose to serve advertisers with shopper publications boasting total market coverage, the Vondraks created the Clear-Ridge Reporter in 1961 (adding expanded coverage in Bedford Park and the Argo-Summit area) and the Southwest Shopper in 1971 to increase their depth of coverage in the area. In 1985, the Vondraks made their first major expansion into adjacent suburbs by creating the Southwest Courier, a tabloid format newspaper servicing the growing suburban communities of Bridgeview, Hickory Hills, Justice and Willow Springs. The most recent suburban expansion, under the group name of Southwest Community Newspapers, was an additional zone of the Southwest Courier, servicing the communities of Burbank and Oak Lawn as a separate entity. In 1987, Edward and Daisy sold their newspaper group to their son James, who has literally grown up with the Vondrak papers, serving in every capacity from newspaper boy to general manager. With the sale of the papers within the family, the Vondrak newspaper group has been assured of its future as a successful, progressive package of family publications serving Chicago's Southwest Side and neighboring suburbs.
