Lee Enterprises Moves Most Papers to 3 Days a Week — and Mail Delivery

Lee Enterprises recently cut most of its 77 newspapers to three editions each week — and also moved to have the U.S. Postal Service, rather than carriers, deliver the editions.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch is an exception to both changes, says United Media Guild President Jeff Gordon. Like other bigger Lee papers in Omaha and Buffalo, the Post-Dispatch remains a daily — for now.

"There's no guarantees," Gordon says. "I have to think at some point the big markets will see a reduction as well. We've been told quite clearly the future is digital."

That future arrived with little fanfare last week for what the union says was the vast majority of Iowa-based Lee's 77 newspapers, including the Southern Illinoisan in Carbondale, Illinois.  Say goodbye to daily home delivery ... say hello to a three-day-old newspaper a few times in a week in your mailbox?

Of that mail delivery, Gordon acknowledges, "They'll have a lot of content that obviously won't be timely."

The one silver lining:  The Carbondale paper, which has a staff of approximately 10 writers and editors, is not seeing any layoffs at this time.

The unions representing Lee journalists have collectively, and strongly, condemned the changes. "This is another example of short-sighted cuts and a lack of investment in local journalism — the main product that supports the company and its investors," they wrote in a letter posted to Twitter.

Journalists across the country are speaking out this week against destructive business decisions by media chain Lee Enterprises. Chronic disinvestment and @LeeEntNews' latest move to slash daily printing of many newspapers is a recipe for failure. #LeeUnionsRaisingAwareness pic.twitter.com/iC4E0qrns1

— Unions of Lee Enterprises (@LeeUnions) June 28, 2023

Tracy Rouch, a spokeswoman for the Post-Dispatch, didn't respond to an email yesterday about the move to three days each week. Earlier this year, members of the United Media Guild voted 48-11 to reject Lee's call for voluntary furloughs in St. Louis, a move that the company had suggested would likely trigger layoffs.

Those layoffs have not materialized, which Gordon attributes to some senior writers and editors finding jobs elsewhere. "The only thing keeping us from layoffs is because longtime people have jumped to the Catholic News Service or PR jobs at the courthouse," he says, referring to a few recent departures, including features writer Valerie Schremp Hahn.

In her farewell letter to the newsroom this May, Hahn compared the Post-Dispatch (and the news business) to a "crazy train." To extend the metaphor, in cities like Carbondale, that train just eliminated daily service — and decided to start using a dirt road instead of the tracks.



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