DAVENPORT, Iowa — Financially desperate Lee Enterprises, whose 77 daily newspapers include the Winona Daily News, has finished an incessant barrage of email pitches for holiday gift subscriptions. For weeks the barrage has been usually two messages a day, sometimes three, to a large online mailing list. The theme, loaded with exclamation marks: “No wrapping, no fuss — and keep a loved one plugged into the news that matters most!” The price was attractive — $26 for a year, compared with Lee’s standard, a lofty $26 a month. A $10 monthly upcharge was offered for ad-free delivery. Exclamation mark! Exclamation mark! Lee’s strategy if you read the fine print was that renewal would be automatic without an explicit opt-out. At the current rate, that would be $314 a year or $434 ad-free. Although the campaign ended Christmas Day, Lee hasn’t released data how many takers it had.
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