The Daily News
Founded in 1919 and the first tabloid newspaper in the United States, Daily News is based in New York City. The paper reports on local, national, and international news, politics, sports, business, and entertainment. Its award-winning writers and columnists provide analysis and opinion that is uniquely New York. The paper is known for its aggressively pro-New York policy and for its Pulitzer Prizes won for coverage of social issues, including poverty and race relations. It also is renowned for its sports coverage, particularly of the Yankees, Mets, and Giants.
During the 1940s, the Daily News reached its peak circulation, with 2.4 million daily readers. The paper was praised for its brassy pictorial approach to reporting. The Daily News was an early adopter of the Associated Press wire photo service and employed many staff photographers. It also was a pioneer in the use of color photography in journalism. During this time, it employed a number of famous photographers and sportswriters, such as Jimmy Breslin and Mike Lupica.
The newspaper is also notable for being a champion of the First Amendment. It has defended the rights of its employees and members of the public to free speech, protest, and assemble. It has also been a strong supporter of the arts and has maintained offices in the historic art deco Daily News Building. In addition, the newspaper established radio station WPIX in 1948 and television station WFAN in 1964.
In the 1990s, the Daily News developed a reputation for protecting the civil rights of people in New York City who are considered to be “non-white.” The newspaper won a Pulitzer Prize in 1996 for E.R. Shipp’s pieces on race and welfare, and in 1998 for Mike McAlary’s reporting of police brutality against Haitian immigrant Abner Louima.
By the late nineties and early aughts, the Daily News was struggling. Advertising revenue was dropping and its legacy pension payments were choking its cash flow. In addition, readers were turning to the Internet for their news and the paper’s management was unable to deal with growing union pressure. The daily paper became a vanity purchase for New York real estate developer Mort Zuckerman and was sold to Tronc in 2017.
As the era of print media continues to decline, newspapers are being forced to cut costs and focus on digital publishing. As a result, they are having to reduce their weekly and Sunday print circulations. This has hurt readership for all newspapers, but especially those like the Daily News that are oriented towards a younger audience. This is especially true for papers that have a liberal political slant and continue to be very anti-Trump, which is the case with this paper.