The Daily News
The daily news is an American tabloid newspaper that is published in New York City. It was founded in 1919 and reached its peak circulation in 1947 at 2.4 million copies a day. The paper has been owned by several companies over the years, but currently is part of Tronc, Inc.
The paper was the first to use the tabloid format in the United States. Its founder, Joseph Medill Patterson, was a wealthy industrialist and philanthropist. The paper often used sensational headlines and a large staff of reporters. It was a strong rival to the more staid New York Times. The newspaper had a long history of financial troubles and in the early 1990s came close to bankruptcy. In 1982 and again in the early 1990s there were strikes at the paper that resulted in major losses. Several times the parent Tribune Company offered The News for sale, and in 1991 millionaire Robert Maxwell bought the newspaper. Maxwell’s death a month later, drowned in controversy over his British pension funds and debts, led to questions about whether The News could continue.
In 1997 the newspaper moved to a new plant in Jersey City, New Jersey. The plant was built to accommodate Goss four-color presses, allowing the newspaper to begin printing its weekday edition in color. The Sunday edition remained black and white. The move to a new plant reduced labor costs and allowed the newspaper to cut its payroll by about 100,000, saving 1,500 union jobs.
During the decade that followed, the newspaper developed a reputation for legal battles to protect the First Amendment. It won a series of victories, forcing the courts to unseal information about public agencies and to strengthen access to family court records. It also gained a national reputation for investigative journalism, winning the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 1993. In the late 1990s it began to lose its readership to the more sensational competitor, the New York Post.
The paper continued to champion the interests of small business and opposed tax increases. Its editorial page ran a campaign to encourage women to participate in the workforce and criticized President Clinton for his policies on abortion. In 1994 the paper was criticized for publishing a story describing a rape by a former police officer. The story was based on a confidential source and the victim denied any such incident occurred.
In 1998 the Daily News began a weekly travel column called Travelmail. In March of that year the paper began a monthly supplement, BET Weekend, in partnership with Black Entertainment Television, for African Americans. The supplement was distributed free in 15 markets. The supplement has since been discontinued. The daily newspaper has also lost a large share of its local advertising. In the last few years, its website has become a significant source of revenue for the newspaper. The website has a conservative political tilt. In December 2017 the newspaper published a front-page story titled “Another human rights fiasco!”, which related to a judge’s decision to award money to Abd Ali Hameed al-Waheed after he was wrongfully imprisoned in Iraq.