Feder: Media watchdog Steve Rhodes suspends Beachwood Reporter

There's one less watchdog keeping an eye on Chicago media these days.

Veteran journalist Steve Rhodes is stepping back after 15 years as media critic for The Beachwood Reporter, the independent website he founded and nurtured as editor and publisher.

"The site is officially suspended in animation until further notice," Rhodes announced Friday, preferring to call his move a "hiatus" rather than a permanent shutdown.

"For now I'm going to spend my time paying bills, cleaning up my taxes, ginning up some outside projects, tweeting, and trying to avoid getting COVID," he wrote. "I still haven't even finished unpacking from my move last March. Though I still haven't finished unpacking from any move I've made since college. But still. So, see you on the other side of whatever this is."

Rhodes, 55, a Minneapolis native, worked as a reporting resident for the Chicago Tribune, correspondent for Newsweek and senior editor for Chicago magazine (where he wrote a weekly media column) before launching The Beachwood Reporter as a webzine in 2006. It was named for the Wicker Park dive bar he and his friends frequented.

Get the full report, and more Chicago media news, at robertfeder.com.