A storied and often troubled tabloid, the Daily News once racked up Pulitzer Prizes in commentary and feature writing. In its 20th-century heyday, the News was a brawny metro tabloid that thrived by digging into crime and corruption. It served as the model for the newspaper depicted in the first two Superman films, with Lois Lane and Clark Kent as its reporters. In its current incarnation as a digital newspaper, the Daily News has still won accolades, including a Pulitzer Prize for public service in partnership with ProPublica in 2018 for uncovering police abuses of homeless people.
A hedge fund that bought Tribune Publishing, the parent company of the New York Daily News, has enacted a series of buyouts and cuts at its newspapers since taking over last year. The newest blow comes in the form of the shuttering of the Daily News’ physical newsroom at 4 New York Plaza in downtown Manhattan. Workers were told in an email Wednesday that the office, which is distinguished by a four-faced clock and a curved glass wall, would be formally closed on Oct. 30. It isn’t clear whether the newspaper will have a newsroom in its place or even where it will be located. Tribune, the Chicago-based company that owns the newspaper chain, also closed the newsrooms of The Morning Call in Allentown, Pa., and The Orlando Sentinel.
In the Daily News’ heyday in the early 20th century, it maintained local offices in the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens. It published a Sunday edition as well as its daily namesake. The paper also had a radio station, WPIX-AM and later a television channel, TV 11. The latter’s call letters reflected the News’ nickname “New York’s Picture Newspaper.” In 1948 the newspaper bought what became WPIX-FM, which is now known as WFAN-FM. Both the radio and television stations remain in the News Building, a downtown Manhattan landmark designed by John Mead Howells and Raymond Hood.
The Yale Daily News Historical Archive contains the full text of digitized versions of print issues of the News from its founding on January 28, 1878 to the present. It is available online to the general public and was largely financed through an anonymous Yale alumnus. It is currently overseen by the Yale Library. Yale Daily News staff members, who have contributed to the archive, have gone on to prominent careers in journalism and public life. The archival collection includes articles, editorials, advertisements and cartoons from every edition of the Daily News since its founding. It also includes the Yale Daily News Magazine and special issues devoted to events at Yale, such as the Yale-Harvard Game Day Issue and the Commencement Issue. The Yale Daily News has also published a number of special issues celebrating the identities of its readership, such as the Yale-African American & Black History Month Issue. The archival collection is an important resource for historians and students of journalism and popular culture in the United States.