WINONA, Minn. – The Winona Daily News, which has published seven days a week since the 1970s, will go to five days. Publisher Sean Burke blamed declines in local advertising – and the coronavirus. “Safer-at-home orders, social distancing and mandatory business closings have impacted the support the local business community,” Burke said. Electronic editions in a traditional newspaper layout will be online seven days a week, he said. Burke, who is based in LaCrosse, oversees the daily LaCrosse Tribune and the LaCrosse-based River Valley group of the struggling Lee newspaper chain. He cast the decision about the Winona paper in broad industry-wide terms, specifically “a fast-changing media landscape” and the coronavirus. The fact, however, is the Daily News has been shrinking for a decade – long before the coronavirus. Printing was moved to LaCrosse more than a decade ago and then to Madison. Not needing its printing press in Winona anymore, the company sold its Franklin Street plant, moved to smaller quarters, and now is in an even smaller storefront downtown. Many home-delivery routes have been eliminated. Editing has been farmed out to a Lee central newsroom. The reporting staff has been pared. The paper has become thinner, often only 10 pages. The masthead hadn’t listed a resident Winona editor for months. The Minnesota Newspaper Association last year listed circulation at 4,349 – less than a third at the paper’s heyday. The Daily News’ only local print competitor, the free-distribution Post, publishes Wednesdays and Sundays. MNA lists the Post circulation at 21,883.
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