Known for its focus on local news, New York sports coverage and sensationalist headlines, Daily News has won several Pulitzer Prizes over the years. But like many newspapers it has struggled in recent years as people turn to digital sources for their news.
The Daily News is a morning tabloid newspaper founded in 1919 by Joseph Medill Patterson. It was the first tabloid to become successful in the United States and reached its peak circulation in 1947. It attracted readers with titillating and scandalous stories, lurid photographs, and entertainment features including reader contests and cartoon strips. Its success helped to propel the development of tabloid journalism in the United States.
By the 1920s, the Daily News had begun to expand its editorial staff and used the Associated Press wirephoto service for many of its articles. It was also an early pioneer in color printing. In 1947, the newspaper reached its highest circulation level, with 2.4 million copies a day. It was described as “the brassy, pictorial, picture newspaper that leads all others”.
In the 1950s, the Daily News was a major player in the emerging television industry, founding WPIX in 1948 (channel 11 in New York City), with call letters inspired by its nickname and the Daily News Building itself. The newspaper also owned and operated a radio station called WFAN, now known as CBS Radio.
The newspaper continued to grow in the 1960s and 1970s. It was one of the first papers to report on the Civil Rights Movement in the United States, and it was also a major player in the early days of the AIDS crisis. In 1972, the newspaper broke the story of the murders of six New York City police officers, which led to a national outpouring of support for law enforcement.
In 1975, the newspaper published what would become its most famous front-page headline: “FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD” (referring to President Gerald Ford’s veto of a bankruptcy bailout for the city). The editorial position of the paper, which had long been self-described as Republican, began to shift toward a more moderate to liberal stance in subsequent decades.
In late 2017, the Daily News was sold to Tronc, the publishing operations of the Tribune Company, for $1. Its current slogan is “The Eyes, The Ears, The Honest Voice of New York”. The Daily News is headquartered at 4 New York Plaza in Lower Manhattan. The newspaper publishes every weekday except Christmas and Thanksgiving. Each Daily News article includes comprehension and critical thinking questions, found below the article, to help students better understand the story. In addition, each article also includes “Background” and “Resources” sections that provide additional information on the topic. Click the titles below to access these materials.