The Yale Daily News and the New York Daily News
The Yale Daily News, founded in 1878, is the nation’s oldest college daily newspaper and serves both the university community and the greater New Haven and Yale area. The paper is typically published each weekday when school is in session and features the latest breaking news, political commentary, sports, New York exclusives, entertainment and more. The News has been financially and editorially independent since its founding. The paper has a long tradition of excellence in journalism and many of its writers have gone on to prominent careers in the public sector. Past contributors include William F. Buckley, Lan Samantha Chang, John Hersey, Joseph Lieberman, Sargent Shriver, Garry Trudeau, Paul Steiger and others.
Founded in 1919, the New York Daily News is famous for its zesty headlines — a screamer like “Ford to City: Drop Dead” during the city’s financial crisis in 1975; gossip and city coverage; and star columnists including Pete Hamill and Liz Smith. It is one of the nation’s top-selling newspapers and has won a number of Pulitzer Prizes, most recently in 1996 for E.R. Shipp’s pieces on welfare and social issues, and in 1998 for Mike McAlary’s coverage of the police beating of Abner Louima.
In the 1970s, a multi-union strike crippled the Daily News and its major competitors in New York, The Times and Post, reducing circulation to less than 800,000 daily copies, down from its heyday of the 1940s. That same decade, controversial media mogul Robert Maxwell bought the newspaper from Tribune Company and added the Daily Mirror to his holdings. Maxwell’s shady business practices eventually caught up with him, and he died at the age of 51 in 1991.
While the News has been through turbulent times since, it is still publishing and growing in popularity. It has an extensive online presence and publishes a weekly magazine called Weekend Edition. In addition, the News also has a successful television and radio station, WPIX-TV, which still operates from its home in the historic News Building on 42nd Street, designed by architects John Mead Howells and Raymond Hood. The building is so iconic it was used as the model for the Daily Planet building in the Superman movies.
Each day’s article in the Daily News contains comprehension and critical thinking questions that help readers understand the article. Often, the article will also contain links to additional resources, such as video clips, maps and other articles, that are useful in understanding the news story. These additional resources are found under the “Background” and “Resources” sections of each article. This feature makes the Daily News a unique and valuable resource for classrooms. The questions are available in English and Spanish.