Theodore White, in his account of that election, "The Making of a President, 1968," said Chandler's reporting "provided the best background of events at Chicago that I have read," on this widely covered event[2] He then was one of four co-founders of the Chicago Journalism Review, which offered journalists an opportunity to air stories that they felt were suppressed or insufficiently covered.

He then co-founded and edited the Chicago Free Press, and later another weekly publication, the Daily Planet, which counted among its contributors the author Nelson Algren.

[citation needed] He was a producer with WBBM-TV Channel 2 in Chicago from 1976 to 1980, working with Bill Kurtis' investigative team, the Focus unit.

[3] Years later, he became a political strategist and speechwriter for what was considered a long-shot campaign by Harold Washington to become the first African-American mayor of Chicago.

The second, Harold Washington and the Civil Rights Legacy, is a memoir of his time serving in the campaign and the early years of the administration of Harold Washington, the first African-American ever elected mayor of Chicago, where he served as a political strategist and speechwriter during the tumultuous come-from-behind candidacy, and then as assistant press secretary and speechwriter in the administration.