Jeff Morrison is a member of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative and the publisher of the Between Two Rivers newsletter, where this article first appeared. Find more of his work at betweentworivers.substack.com and iowahighwayends.net.

COVID-19 whacked the Iowa newspaper industry hard.

Between March 13 and June 15, 2020, a combined 30 days’ worth of issues across sixteen Iowa communities vanished.

However, 2019 had seen its own share of print reductions. Over the past six years, national and local publishers have made difficult decisions to reduce print pages or cease printing altogether. It didn’t matter whether they had newspapers nationwide or one paper in one town.

This timeline lays out the publishing changes that could be tracked down in Iowa newspapers between January 2019 and February 2025, either in decreasing frequency of multi-day papers or weeklies that were discontinued or merged. Dates were collected from news stories of the time, Advantage Preservation websites, and the Internet Archive. Some papers produce an “e-edition” that is like the print product, in the same format, on non-print days, and those are so noted. The online version of this newsletter may be updated for new information or unintentional omissions.

2019

Feb. 4: Oskaloosa Herald drops Mondays, printing Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday

March 11: Centerville Daily Iowegian drops Mondays, printing Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday with a shopper Ad-Express on Wednesday. The Ad-Express had included two pages of news until 2017.

March 28: Final issues of the Monroe Legacy and Prairie City News, which are combined into the PCM Explorer

April 2: Carroll Daily Times Herald drops from five days a week to Tuesday/Friday

May 3: New Hampton Tribune drops Fridays, becomes a weekly

Aug. 5: Four of five weekday issues of the Fairfield Ledger, Mt. Pleasant News, and Washington Evening Journal are merged into the weekday Southeast Iowa Union. Individualized editions are printed on Thursdays.

Nov. 28: Final issue of the Decorah Journal and end of the one-newspaper-two-titles era there. The following week, the Driftless Journal is sent out as a shopper that has some news in it. Decorah’s other paper, the Public Opinion, will be renamed the Decorah Leader in mid-2024 with an ownership change.

2020

March 13: Iowa State Daily and Daily Iowan publish their last newspapers before spring break. The Iowa State Daily will never print again. The Daily Iowan will return with weekly issues, then daily the first two weeks of the 2020-21 school year, then settle on a Monday/Wednesday schedule (plus Fridays during football season) for three years.

March 21: Final Saturday editions of Maquoketa Sentinel Press and De Witt Observer, as they become weeklies

March 27: Final Friday/full-week editions of the Charles City Press and Newton Daily News as both papers go from five days a week to Tuesday/Friday. “We have every intent of resuming as a daily newspaper when this is over,” the Press publisher wrote at the time.

March 27: Final Friday edition of the Missouri Valley Times News, going weekly “for foreseeable future”

March 30: Spencer Daily Reporter, which had been printing four days a week with a shopper on Wednesday, “temporarily” cuts Mondays and Thursdays, printing on Tuesdays and Fridays. Also, the Storm Lake Pilot-Tribune “temporarily” switches from Monday/Wednesday/Friday to Tuesday/Friday.

The La Porte City Progress Review on March 25, 2020, carried the anticipation of sports resuming in mid-April and a search for a buyer for the paper. Hopes of both were dashed as the coronavirus pandemic continued to spread. The paper shut down six months later. Image via Advantage Preservation.

March 26: Final issue of the Albia Union-Republican; Monroe County News continues

April 2: Final issue of the Chariton Herald-Patriot; Chariton Leader continues

April 8: Atlantic News-Telegraph converts Wednesday to an e-edition for one week and Mondays to e-editions for three months; both are restored

April 9: Daily Iowegian drops Thursdays

April 14: Le Mars Daily Sentinel “temporarily” drops Tuesdays, printing Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. It won’t drop “Daily” from its name until June 6, 2022, after a handful of northwest Iowa newspapers change hands.

April 16: Oskaloosa Herald drops Thursdays, printing on Tuesday and Friday

May 13: Clinton Herald drops Wednesdays and Fridays, printing Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday with e-editions on the dropped days

May 13: Ottumwa Courier drops Wednesdays and Fridays, printing Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday with e-editions on the dropped days

May 14: Final issues of both the Knoxville Journal-Express and Pella Chronicle, which are subsumed into the Oskaloosa Herald. The former was the oldest business in Knoxville, the latter the second-oldest business in Pella under the same name.

May 15: Final issues of the Dysart Reporter, Traer Star-Clipper, Tama News-Herald, Toledo Chronicle, Northern Sun Print, and Reinbeck Courier, before those six papers are condensed into three: North Tama Telegraph, Tama-Toledo News Chronicle, and Sun-Courier. The oldest nameplate dated to 1868; the newest was a merger of the Garwin Sun and Tama Northern of Gladbrook in 1976.

May 22: Final issue of the Daily Iowegian, which had held the title of second-oldest continuous business in Centerville for more than half a century

June 17: Final issue of the Keota Eagle

June 18: Final issue of the New Sharon Sun

June 24: Final issues of the Elgin Echo, Fayette Leader, and Fayette County Union of West Union; the following week the Union Echo Leader replaces all three

Aug. 10: Sioux City Journal drops Mondays and Tuesdays, printing five days a week

Sept. 30: Final issue of the La Porte City Progress-Review. The publishers had announced on March 11 that if they could not find a buyer in six months, the paper would fold. Online versions of the last 15 months of editions have garbled date stamps and some issues from that period, including the last, are unavailable.

2021

Jan. 4: Dubuque Telegraph-Herald drops Mondays, printing six days a week with a Monday e-edition

Feb. 15: Final issue of the Sidney Argus Herald

July 21: Estherville News switches from Monday/Thursday to Tuesday/Thursday

July 29: Final issues of the Marion Times and Essex Independent

Oct. 1: Oskaloosa Herald switches from Tuesday/Friday to Tuesday/Saturday

Dec. 7: Estherville News drops Tuesdays, becomes weekly

2022

Feb. 10: Final issue of the North Liberty Leader

March 12: The Des Moines Register drops Saturdays, printing six days a week with a Saturday e-edition

April 6: The Storm Lake Times and Pilot-Tribune merge into the twice-weekly Storm Lake Times Pilot

April 11: Cherokee Chronicle Times drops Mondays, printing Wednesday/Friday

April 30: Burlington Hawk Eye drops Saturdays

July: Although there had been an announcement that the Ames Tribune would cut to three days a week, this does not happen.

July: Lake City becomes a two-newspaper town in a dispute covered by media website Poynter and the Fort Dodge Messenger. It has knock-on effects on the Dayton Leader to the east, which gets a new publisher just before the town’s rodeo on Labor Day.

Dec. 5: After an ownership change, the Hawk Eye switches to printing Tuesday-Saturday (five days), a week after its now-sibling papers in Fort Madison and Keokuk change from Monday-Friday to Tuesday-Saturday.

Dec. 29: Final issue of the Jesup Citizen Herald

2023

Jan. 25: The weekly Clarinda Herald-Journal and twice-weekly Shenandoah Valley Newsare combined into the weekly Southwest Iowa Herald. The Denison Bulletin and Reviewand Logan-Woodbine Twiner-Herald are combined into a single, weekly Bulletin-Review.

May 1: Final Monday issue of the Daily Iowan; from here forward it prints only on Wednesdays plus Fridays during football season

June 20: Four papers — Council Bluffs Nonpareil, Mason City Globe Gazette, Sioux City Journal, and Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier — go from printing six, six, five, and six days a week (but differing days) to Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday with e-editions on the other days

July 1: Cherokee Chronicle Times becomes a weekly

Sept. 12: Le Mars Sentinel goes from Monday/Wednesday/Friday to Tuesday/Friday. Creston News Advertiser goes from five days a week to three (MWF) with e-editions on the dropped days.

Nov. 13: Oelwein Daily Register drops Mondays, prints Tuesday-Saturday with Monday e-edition

Nov. 20: Atlantic News-Telegraph drops Mondays, prints Tuesday-Saturday with Monday e-edition

Dec. 27: Final issue of the Star Press Union, descendant of the Belle Plaine Union and South Benton Star-Press of Blairstown

Dec. 29: Final issue of the Guthrie County Times Vedette, at least as a print product; the title is converted to an e-mail newsletter and monthly publications are mailed out in Guthrie Center and Panora

2024

Jan. 2: Southeast Iowa Union drops from five days a week to Tuesday/Thursday

Jan. 26: The longtime owners of the Hinton Times announce their retirement — a development that months later was mentioned in an Associated Press story — but the paper does not end. Instead, it’s now operated by a local resident.

Feb. 1: Anamosa Journal-Eureka and Linn News announce their final issues, only to be acquired within a week and continue publication

Feb. 8: Daily Iowan takes control of the Mount Vernon-Lisbon Sun and Solon Economist

April 18: Final print issue of the Villisca Review/Stanton Viking, according to the Villisca library. No official announcement was made and the phone number is no longer in service.

June 28: Final issues of the Corydon Times Republican and Humeston New Era before being combined into the Times Republican & New Era

Nov. 13: Final issues of the Union Echo Leader (see June 2020) and Ossian Bee before being combined into a paper simply called The Union

2025

Jan. 29: Final issues of the Aurelia Star and Schaller Times

Feb. 15: Dubuque Telegraph Herald drops from six days a week to Sunday/Wednesday/Friday with e-editions the rest of the week

Feb. 17: Cedar Rapids Gazette drops from seven days a week to Sunday/Wednesday/Saturday with e-editions the rest of the week

Feb. 25: Final Tuesday issue of the Oskaloosa Herald as it becomes a weekly

Feb. 26: Final Wednesday issue of the Storm Lake Times Pilot as it becomes a weekly

Feb. 27: Final Thursday issue of the Ottumwa Courier, now printed only Tuesday/Saturday; digital-only editions were discontinued at the start of the year

March 10: The Quad-City Times is the only Iowa-based newspaper still printing seven days a week, although the Omaha World-Herald has an Iowa presence. Thirteen newspapers in Iowa print five or more days a week, but of those, only the Register and QCT have daily circulations above 5,000. Overall, seven print a Sunday paper: those two plus the Gazette, Telegraph Herald, Fort Dodge Messenger, Ames Tribune, and Marshalltown Times-Republican. Of multi-day papers, the most common print day is Tuesday (26) and the least common weekday is Monday (8).

It has been five years since COVID-19 brought the world to a stop. Plenty of other ill winds were hurting the newspaper industry before that, and even more do so now. But the virus delivered a body blow for the ages.

(This is an expanded and updated version of the blog post “When a daily isn’t,” published March 9, 2022, on Iowa Highway Ends. The author has worked for, designed, or contributed to some of the newspapers mentioned.)