The first issue of Outbound News appeared on Dec. 15, 2004. OutBound News was founded to give Milwaukee and Wisconsin a true newspaper for the first time in several years, since the demise of both In Step and Wisconsin Light. Unfortunately, it was started up in the same month that another Milwaukee-based newspaper, Q-Life, also began publishing.

The newspaper published its last issue exactly one year later, making in its Final Issue, that of November 2005, the following statement:

This is our final issue of Outbound News. We have decided to shift our focus on our entertainment guide Outbound Magazine.

We would like to thank everyone who supported us this past year.

We will continue to publish Outbound Magazine and will make improvements to accomodate our advertisers that supported our newspaper.

Q-Life has properly filled the void that InStep left 2 years ago. We urge everyone to support all publications.

The same publishers continued to print a monthly entertainment guide, Outbound Wisconsin, a smaller gloss-magazine style publication, which they had started up in 2002.