[1] In its heyday, Lerner published 54 weekly and semi-weekly editions on the North and Northwest sides of Chicago and in suburban Cook, Lake and DuPage counties, with a circulation of some 300,000.

At one time, the chain had its own printing plant at its headquarters in the Rogers Park, Chicago, neighborhood[3] and a network of satellite offices across the city and its suburbs.

From 1924-28, Lerner worked in editorial positions on the Morton Grove News, the North Side Sunday Citizen and the Lincoln Belmont Booster.

In 1992, Pulitzer was on the brink of shutting down the Lerner papers but, at the last minute, with final editions set in type, sold the chain's assets to Sunstates Corp. for a reported $4 million.

In 2000, in a surreptitious arrangement that came to be known as the "Lerner Exchange,"[15] Sunstates sold the chain to a company fronted by Canadian press baron Conrad Black, who resold it to Hollinger International.

This and other illegal maneuvers by Black and sidekick David Radler, Sun-Times publisher, ultimately led to their conviction on fraud charges when they were found to have looted millions from the company.

[16] Amid Hollinger reorganization (ultimately to the Sun-Times Media Group) in the wake of the scandal, the company merged Lerner Newspapers into its longtime suburban rival, Pioneer Press, in 2005.

Pioneer continued to print a handful of city of Chicago newspapers with the old nameplates — the Booster, News-Star, Skyline and Times — converting them from broadsheet to tabloid, until January 2008, when the company announced it was pulling out of urban publishing entirely.

[19] Although reduced to operating from his home, Ron Roenigk, the publisher of Inside Publications, said he would be buying the two former Lerner nameplates, largely to get their legal advertising.

[2] The Life newspapers ran from the 1920s through 2005, beginning with a Rogers Park edition, and later expanding into covering Chicago's northern suburbs, including, at various times, Buffalo Grove, Deerfield, Des Plaines, Evanston, Ft. Sheridan, Glenview, Highland Park, Highwood, Lake County, Lake Forest, Lincolnwood, Morton Grove, Niles, Niles Township, Northbrook, Skokie and Wheeling.

In 2005, Pioneer Press sold the nameplate to the Wednesday Journal, which continues to publish it, covering the Gold Coast, Lincoln Park, Old Town and River North.

In the mid-1990s, Sunstates reused the Voice name for a small, short-lived group of north suburban tabloids, launched as shoppers, and then expanded into regular editions covering community news and features, with longtime Chicago journalist Leah A. Zeldes as managing editor.