The Daily News is an American tabloid newspaper published in New York City. Founded in 1919 as the Illustrated Daily News by Joseph Medill Patterson, it was the first newspaper to be published in tabloid format in the United States and reached its peak circulation in 1947, when it was the highest-circulation daily paper in the country.
The paper has many features that are common to all newspapers including local, national and international news, sports coverage, entertainment, classified advertising and opinion. It is also known for its extensive use of photographs and for its focus on New York-specific news stories, politics and celebrity gossip.
While most newspapers are aimed at a broad spectrum of readers, some serve groups defined more by their interests than by location: there are business newspapers (e.g. The Wall Street Journal) and sports newspapers, for example. Still others serve very specific communities within a city or region, such as immigrant populations, gay or indie rock enthusiasts or the like.
A typical newspaper has a section devoted to opinion and commentary, and some have separate sections for humor and comics and/or feature articles. Many of these columns are written by well-known writers. The editorials of the Daily News are often provocative and have a strong bias toward Democratic political viewpoints. The paper has won many awards for its editorial and opinion pieces over the years.
Despite its long history, the Daily News is facing financial challenges. Its parent company, Tribune Publishing, declared bankruptcy in 2017 and announced that the News would close its physical newsroom in New York. The New York office is one of four to close. In a sign of the times, the Daily News in 2021 partnered with Yale to publish a series of special issues celebrating Indigenous, Black, Latino and Asian American communities in collaboration with the campus cultural centers and affiliated student groups.
In addition to its regular daily editions, the News has several weekly publications, including the IPO DailyTM (three to five brief paragraphs per day covering patent and trademark opinions from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit). The Yale Daily News Historical Archive, housed at the Yale Library since 2021, is an excellent resource on American journalism and is continually being improved and expanded.
The Daily News provides an ideal teaching tool for students to practice reading skills. Start the lesson by announcing the headlines and asking students to guess what it is about before opening the article. Ask them to look for information that supports their hypothesis, and engage in discussion as they read the article. When students have a good understanding of the article, they can move on to breaking news stories and practice vocabulary and sentence structure skills. Then they can read the latest updates from world, sports and entertainment news and respond to them with their own comments or questions. They can even find out more about the story behind the news by using the related links.