Daily News is an American morning tabloid newspaper published in New York City. Founded in 1919, it was the first successful tabloid in the United States and at its peak had the largest circulation of any newspaper in the world. The Daily News is known for its sensational pictorial front-page coverage of events, as well as its intense city news coverage, celebrity gossip, classified ads, comics and sports section. The newspaper’s editorial page has a liberal political lean and the paper is often critical of the city, state and federal governments. Its website includes a daily blog that features political cartoons and commentaries and offers an extensive array of online news stories, in addition to the printed edition.
Like daily newspapers, weekly papers usually have a variety of sections, including sports and entertainment, local news, the arts and food. The news section contains general and breaking local news, as well as a business and government section with articles about pending legislation and public hearings. Most weeklies also feature local theater and art reviews, restaurant reviews and a food section that may concentrate on recipes. Like the daily newspapers, most have an editorial page, which contains letters to the editor on a wide range of topics. In addition to the news and opinion pages, many weekly papers have a public-record section that publishes summaries of police-incident reports, fire department calls and court dispositions. Most weekly papers also contain a calendar of public events and notices for bids, hearings, adoption of ordinances, planning applications, financial reports and other government activities that are required to be publicized.
As the twentieth century drew to a close, the success of the Daily News began to decline. The newspaper grew ever more conservative and, by the 1980s, it was operating at a loss of more than $1 million a month. In 1990, the Daily News’ parent company, the Tribune Company, offered the tabloid for sale. However, the publisher at the time, Robert R. McCormick, was reluctant to close the newspaper because of the costs associated with severance pay and pensions.
After the sale, publisher Mort Zuckerman made several big changes to the Daily News. He invested $60 million to put the Daily News on color presses, enabling it to compete visually with USA Today. He also introduced the popular African-American insert BET Weekend and the quarterly Caribbean Monthly.
Aside from these major changes, the newspaper remained an aggressively pro-America, anti-communist tabloid. Its editorial staff earned a reputation for protecting the First Amendment and the rights of the residents of New York City, especially those who were perceived as being underprivileged in the society. In 1996, the Daily News won the Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished Commentary for E.R. Shipp’s articles on race and welfare. In 1999, the Daily News developed a fully electronic publishing system, claiming to be the first metropolitan paper in the nation to do so. That same year, the Daily News was acquired by Tronc, a Chicago-based media corporation.