More than 85 local newsrooms closed during the coronavirus pandemic – Poynter poynter.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from poynter.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Lakeshore Weekly News all shut down shortly after Covid hit last year.
Despite casualties, two venerable publishers are still standing.
Last year the St. Paul-based
Villager (once known as the
Highland Villager) started asking readers to shell out $59.88 for 26 editions per year. That works out to $4.99 per month. “It’s the cost of a cup of coffee,” says Michael Mischke, publisher and owner.
But it’s also a tougher sell.
“It’s a very difficult thing for a paper that’s been free since 1953 to begin asking for subscriptions when I’m still forced to [home] deliver for free for the benefit of our advertisers,” says Mischke. “[But] the advertising dollars just don’t support it anymore, and that was the case even before Covid.”
A few Minnesota newspapers get new owners
Papers in southeastern and northeastern Minnesota have been sold.
Author:
In a year where Minnesota s newspaper landscape has seen a lot of change, more is on the horizon after three more community papers have new owners.
The Republican Eagle, which covers Red Wing, and Hudson Star-Observer, which covers Hudson, Wisconsin, newspapers have been sold to O Rourke Media Group.
Forum Communications Company, which owns several newspapers in the state, sold RiverTown Multimedia, which publishes the two papers, according to a story on the papers website.
And for the time being, O Rourke Media Group says readers of the two papers won t see any immediate changes to the print or digital sides after the transition takes effect Jan. 1, 2021.