By the end of August 2020 Wyoming will become the only (first?) state in the U.S. to publish no daily newspaper as the Casper Star-Tribune cuts its schedule to five days a week.
Wyoming has six “daily” newspapers, but now none of them will actually print a paper seven days a week. It could be the first time a U.S. state will publish no newspapers on Monday mornings [emphasis added]…ever.
The Casper Star-Tribune announced yesterday that it would no longer be a true “daily” paper, eliminating its Monday and Tuesday print editions next month.
But the Star-Tribune’s decision will mean that across the entire state of Wyoming, all 97,914 square miles, there will no longer be a single local newspaper printed on Monday mornings. Zero.
I emphasized that “mornings” above because Nieman does add:
But all is not quite lost for Monday newspaper addicts. There is one small afternoon paper, The Sheridan Press, that still prints on Mondays (though not on Sundays). Its circulation is around 4,000, and it has no plans to chop out any more print days.
But by late August no newspaper in Wyoming will publish seven days a week. Nieman:
Wyoming still has about 40 newspapers, most of which are weeklies; none of them come out on Mondays. Of the state’s six dailies (“dailies”), the Star-Tribune was the last one still printing seven days a week. The Wyoming Tribune-Eagle in Cheyenne killed its Monday paper in 2018. The Laramie Boomerang (what a name) doesn’t print on Mondays or Tuesdays. The Riverton Ranger skips Mondays and Saturdays. The Gillette News-Record printed a Monday paper until two months ago, when it cut back from six days to two.
The Casper Star-Tribune will begin publishing in print five days a week starting in August, the newspaper’s president announced Tuesday. The newspaper will no longer print on Mondays and Tuesdays.
The change is set to begin the week of Aug. 24.
The Star-Tribune prints two pages of comics with a few story strips. Keep in mind a number of gag strips have continuity as a joke thread will run through a week, with the set-up coming on a Monday. Will adjustments be made? Here’s a peek at their funny pages from July 3, 2020:
The Casper paper still carries Get Fuzzy reruns? And I notice for years it still credits the Blondie strip as by Chic Young.