Chicago weekly newspaper chain published from 1926 to 2005 on the north and northwest sides of the city, as well as suburban Cook, Lake, and DuPage counties.

The Lerner Newspapers chain was founded when Leo A. Lerner (1907-1965) purchased the Lincoln-Belmont Booster in 1926. Lerner worked in editorial positions at this paper, as well as the Morton Grove News and North Side Sunday Citizen, from 1924-1928 while attending Northwestern University. After graduating, he partnered with A.O. Caplan in the management of 16 publications known as the Myers Newspapers, which had a combined circulation of 219,000. By 1958 Lerner was president of a still-growing number of papers that included the Myers Publishing Co., the Lincoln Belmont Publishing Co., the Times Home Newspapers (J.L. Johnson Publishing Co.) and the Neighbor Press of Chicago. Some of the editions under the Lerner Newspapers umbrella included: Booster, covering various north side neighborhoods; Citizen, which merged into other papers in 1930; Life, which began with a Rogers Park edition and later expanded into Chicago’s northern suburbs; News and Star, later combining into the News-Star to cover the far north side; Skyline, started in the 1960s to cover the Loop, Near North Side and Lincoln Park; Times, focusing on Chicago’s northwest side and western suburbs; and Voice, covering the northwest suburbs.

The Lincoln-Belmont Booster, in addition to being the first publication acquired by Lerner, was emblematic of the company’s focus on community journalism. Its coverage spanned various north side neighborhoods, including Avondale, Irving Park, Lake View, Lincoln-Belmont, Lincoln Park, Lincoln Square, Logan-Armitage, North Center, Roscoe Village, and Sheridan Center. The publication’s writers (including a young Mike Royko) reported on hyper-local news, guided by Leo Lerner’s insistence that “A fistfight on Clark Street is more important to our readers than a war in Europe.”

By 1962 Lerner’s son Louis A. Lerner (1935-1984) had become executive vice president of Lerner Home Newspapers, and in 1969 he became its publisher. Louis Lerner died in 1984. The following year the chain, then numbering 52 weekly publications, was sold to Pulitzer Publishing for $9.1 million. The St. Louis-based company hoped to expand its Chicago market by drawing readers and advertisers away from the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times. However, the recession of the early 1990s interfered with this plan, and Lerner Newspapers saw its advertising base shrivel (in large part due to its reliance on help wanted classified ads). Pulitzer closed and merged many of the Lerner publications until only 15 remained. By 1992, circulation had dropped from 300,000 to 100,000, and Pulitzer was going to shut down Lerner Newspapers that same year. At the last minute, Sunstates Corp. bought the chain. In 2000, Lerner Newspapers was sold again, this time to a company fronted by Canadian-British publisher Conrad Black. Black then resold the chain to Hollinger International (which would ultimately become part of Sun-Times Media Group). The company merged Lerner Newspapers with Pioneer Press, another local news publisher, discontinuing its editions aside from the Booster, News-Star, Skyline, and Times. In 2008, these were sold once again, this time to the Oak Park-based Wednesday Journal, Inc. After this company announced it was dropping the Booster and News-Star, they were picked up by Inside Publications, and as of 2023 Inside still publishes the Inside-Booster, News-Star, and Skyline.