New York Daily News
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Daily News | |
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 The December 16, 2005 front page of the Daily News |
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| Type | Daily newspaper |
| Format | Tabloid |
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| Owner | Mortimer Zuckerman |
| Publisher | Mortimer Zuckerman |
| Founded | 1919 |
| Headquarters | 450 W. 33 Street New York, NY 10001  United States |
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| Website: nydailynews.com | |
The Daily News of New York City is the sixth largest daily newspaper in the United States with a circulation of 693,382, as of October 31, 2006. The paper, the first U.S. daily printed in tabloid form, first rolled off the printing presses in 1919. It is owned and run by Mortimer Zuckerman.
The paper has won nine Pulitzer Prizes.
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[edit] History
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.
The newspaper was founded by Joseph Medill Patterson, a member of the family that published the Chicago Tribune; from its founding until 1991 was owned by the Tribune. The News later established WPIX (Channel 11 in New York City) and WPIX-FM.
At one point in the early 1990s, the Daily News almost went out of business. However, 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 allegations about whether he had the financial backing to sustain it. Mort Zuckerman bought the paper in 1993.
[edit] Headquarters
From the 1930s to 1990s, 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). WPIX-TV remains in the building, although it now partners with Newsday, as both are owned by Tribune.
[edit] Editorial opinion
The Daily News is generally seen as politically midway between the two other major New York City dailies, the more liberal New York Times, and the more conservative New York Post, though tending more in the direction of liberalism. Typically, its editorial page espouses a liberal position on social issues like abortion, while advocating more conservative positions on crime and foreign policy, including pro-Israel and anti-Castro editorials and columns. This was not always the case, as the Daily News, during its partnership with the Chicago Tribune, usually shared the Tribune's staunch conservative viewpoint, while the Post was considered a liberal newspaper. The two papers had reversed their ideologies by the late 1970s, largely due to changing city demographics and the purchase of the Post by Rupert Murdoch.
[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, and Chris Allbritton), 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' championship of 1955)
- 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 Ben 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 (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)
- 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)
[edit] Daily Planet
The Daily News served as the model for the Daily Planet in the Superman movies, beginning with Superman: The Movie 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
- Scratch n' Match, the sweepstakes that offers winner up to $100,000 cash
- Lloyd Grove, gossip columnist
