Since 2.2, for news, the start and end dates are of type datetime.
You can optionally keep the widget date by overriding the data definition of the News content type.
For example:
<cms:metadata name="start-date" type="datetime"> <label i18n="true">CONTENT_NEWS_START_DATE</label> <description i18n="true">CONTENT_NEWS_START_DATE_DESC</description> <widget>edition.date</widget> <validation> <invalidText i18n="true">CONTENT_NEWS_DATE_INVALID_FORMAT</invalidText> </validation> </cms:metadata>
<cms:metadata name="start-date" type="datetime"> <label i18n="true">CONTENT_NEWS_START_DATE</label> <description i18n="true">CONTENT_NEWS_START_DATE_DESC</description> <widget>edition.date</widget> <validation> <invalidText i18n="true">CONTENT_NEWS_DATE_INVALID_FORMAT</invalidText> </validation> </cms:metadata>
<cms:metadata name="start-date" type="datetime"> <label i18n="true">CONTENT_NEWS_START_DATE</label> <description i18n="true">CONTENT_NEWS_START_DATE_DESC</description> <widget>edition.date</widget> <validation> <invalidText i18n="true">CONTENT_NEWS_DATE_INVALID_FORMAT</invalidText> </validation> </cms:metadata>