Daily News (New York)
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 The December 16, 2005 front page |
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| Type | Daily newspaper |
| Format | tabloid |
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| Owner | Mortimer Zuckerman |
| Publisher | Mortimer Zuckerman |
| Founded | 1919 |
| Headquarters | 450 West 33rd Street New York, New York 10001  United States |
| Circulation | 718,174 Daily[1] 775,543 Sunday[2] |
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| Website: nydailynews.com | |
The Daily News of New York City is the fifth most-widely circulated daily newspaper in the United States with a daily circulation of 681,415, as of September 30, 2007.[3] The first U.S. daily printed in tabloid form, it was founded in 1919, and as of 2007 is owned and run by Mortimer Zuckerman. It has won ten Pulitzer Prizes.[4]
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[edit] History
The Daily News was founded by Joseph Medill Patterson. He and his cousin, Robert R. McCormick were co-publishers of the Chicago Tribune and grandsons of Tribune founder Joseph Medill. When Patterson and McCormick could not agree on the editorial content of the Chicago paper, the two cousins decided at a meeting in Paris that Patterson set on the project of launching a Tribune-owned newspaper in New York. On his way back, Patterson met with Alfred Harmsworth, who was the Viscount Northcliffe and publisher of the Daily Mirror, London's tabloid newspaper. Impressed with the advantages of a tabloid, Patterson launched the Daily News on June 26, 1919.[5]
The Daily News was not an immediate success. With an emphasis on sensational news, violent crimes and sex scandals, the tabloid was described as "a paper for morons" and "vulgar journalism in its worst form". By August 1919, the paper's circulation had actually dropped to 26,625 [6]. Still, New York's many subway commuters found the tabloid format easier to handle, and readership steadily grew. By the time of the paper's first anniversary in June 1920, circulation was over 100,000 and by 1925, over a million.
The News carried the well-known slogan "New York's Picture Newspaper" from 1920 to 1991, for its emphasis on photographs, and a camera has been part of the newspaper's logo from day one. (The News's current slogan, developed from a 1985 ad campaign, is "New York's Hometown Newspaper" while another slogan was "The Eyes, the Ears, the Honest Voice of New York"). The Daily News continues to include large and prominent photographs, for news, entertainment and sports, as well as intense city news coverage, celebrity gossip, classified ads, comics, a sports section, and an opinion section.
Prominent sports cartoonists have included Bill Gallo and Ed Murawinski. Columnists have included Walter Kaner. Editorial cartoonists have included C. D. Batchelor.
In 1982, and again in the early 1990s during a newspaper strike, the Daily News almost went out of business. In the 1982 instance, the parent Tribune offered the tabloid up for sale. In 1991, millionaire Robert Maxwell offered financial assistance to The News to help it stay in business. When Maxwell died shortly thereafter, The News seceded from his publishing empire, which eventually splintered under questions about whether Maxwell had the financial backing to sustain it. Mort Zuckerman bought the paper in 1993.
From its founding until 1991, the Daily News was owned by the Tribune. The News established WPIX (Channel 11 in New York City), whose call letters were based on The News' nickname of New York's Picture Newspaper; and later bought what became WPIX-FM, which later became WQCD. The television station became a Tribune property outright in 1991; the radio station was purchased by Emmis Communications.
[edit] Headquarters
From 1929 to 1995, The News was based in a landmark skyscraper at 220 East 42nd Street near Second Avenue, designed by John Mead Howells and Raymond Hood. The paper moved to 33rd Street in the mid-1990s, but the 42nd Street location is still known as The News Building and still features a giant globe and weather instruments in its lobby. (It was the model for the Daily Planet building of the first two Superman movies). Former News subsidiary WPIX-TV remains in the building, although it now partners with Newsday, another Tribune property.
[edit] Style and reputation
Though its competition with the Post has occasionally led the Daily News to engage in some of the more sensationalist tactics of its competitor, it is still respected in the industry for the quality of its contributors (which past and present have included Jimmy Breslin, Pete Hamill, William Reel, David Hinckley, Mike Lupica, Juan Gonzalez, Ronan Keenan, John Melia, Chris Allbritton, and Lars-Erik Nelson), its solid coverage of the city, and its photos. Its Voice of the People letters section (which often allows letter writers, called Voicers, to respond to other letter writers) is seen as a good way to read the pulse of the city.
[edit] Notable front pages
The News' is known for its often colorful and blunt front page headlines, several of which have achieved iconic status. Famous headlines from the Daily News include:
- DEAD! (Picture of the execution of Ruth Snyder, 1928)
- WHO'S A BUM! (describing the Brooklyn Dodgers' winning the 1955 World Series)
- ROCKY QUITS (Upon the resigniation of Nelson Rockefeller as governor of New York in order to assume the chairmanship of the Commission on Critical Choices for Americans, November 1973.)
- FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD (bankruptcy of New York City government and the refusal of President Gerald Ford to give financial assistance to the city prompted this headline in 1975; the paper nonetheless endorsed him for President the next year)
- TOP COP ADMITS HANKY PANKY (about the marital travails of then-Police Commissioner Benjamin Ward in 1984)
- BOULEVARD OF DEATH (referring to Queens Boulevard in Queens, where 72 people were killed in traffic accidents between 1993 and 2000)
- CRY BABY (referring to then-Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich in 1995, for his shutting down the US government during budget talks)
- THE BOY WHO FOOLED NEW YORK (about a 13-year-old boy named Edwin Sabillon who ran away from his home in the Honduras to New York, lying about his mother dying in Hurricane Mitch and him going to live with his father in New York. In actuality, his mother abandoned him and his father had died of AIDS months before, which he could not believe. August 31, 1999)
- NOT MY BABY! (Picture of the grieving mother of a victim of Pan Am Flight 103)
- IT'S WAR (Picture of the second plane going into the World Trade Center, 2001)
- AIR HEADS (referring to the pilots of a plane that ventured into restricted airspace over Washington, D.C., in May 2005)
- HIS FAULT (Mike Lupica and Ronan Keenan accused Isiah Thomas of being responsible for the Knicks-Nuggets brawl, writing an editorial column called The Garden of Evil. December 18, 2006)
- CHAMPS! (referring to the New York Giants Super Bowl victory February 4, 2008.)
[edit] Daily Planet
The Daily News served as the model for the Daily Planet in the Superman movies, beginning with Superman in 1978. The News Building stood in for the Daily Planet Building, with the large globe in the real-life lobby serving as a handy emblem for the Planet.
When Superman makes his public debut, the Planet carries the headline, "CAPED WONDER STUNS CITY," while Planet editor Perry White compares it to the other papers in Metropolis, which also seem to mirror the New York papers:
- The Metropolis Post, a tabloid: "IT FLIES!"
- The Daily News, a tabloid, also resembling its New York namesake: "LOOK MA - NO WIRES!"
- The Metropolis Times, a broadsheet: "BLUE BOMB BUZZES METROPOLIS."
[edit] See also
- Media of New York City
- Lloyd Grove, gossip columnist
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ "Circulation at the Top 20 Newspapers", The Associated Press, 2007-04-30. Retrieved on 2007-04-30.
- ^ 2007 Top 100 Daily Newspapers in the U.S. by Circulation (PDF). BurrellesLuce (2007-03-31). Retrieved on 2007-05-28.
- ^ Newspaper circulation off 2.6%; some count Web readers - USATODAY.com
- ^ Daily News editorial board wins Pulitzer - News - NY Daily News
- ^ "Patterson, Joseph Medill," Current Biography 1942, pp648-51
- ^ Id. at 649
