Founded in 1919, the New York Daily News was the first successful tabloid newspaper. Originally named the Illustrated Daily News, it was a subsidiary of the Chicago Tribune, and quickly found success by attracted readers with sensational pictorial coverage of crime, scandal, and violence. Lurid photographs and entertaining cartoons were also used to drive readership, which at its peak reached over a million people a day.
By the end of the 1920s, the Daily News had grown so large that it needed a new home. Rather than simply moving to another office, Patterson hired architect Raymond Hood to design a building specifically for the paper. The result was the strikingly modern News Building, a 36-story freestanding structure that would later be used as inspiration for the Daily Planet in the Superman franchise.
With a circulation of more than a million, the Daily News was the biggest newspaper in the United States at that time. It was an early adopter of the Associated Press wirephoto service, and its reporters were known for their aggressive pursuit of stories and for their willingness to go to extreme lengths to get a story (like Chicago Tribune reporter Tom Howard strapping a camera to his leg while Ruth Snyder was being electrocuted in her murder trial; the resulting photo was published with the headline “DEAD!”).
The Daily News was a staunchly Republican publication, and its editorials frequently attacked the policies of Democratic mayors of New York City. One of its most famous editorials came in 1975, after President Gerald Ford had vetoed a bankruptcy bailout for the city, with the front page reading “FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD”.
Throughout its history, the Daily News has been owned by several companies. In 1991, publisher Arthur Maxwell died, leaving the paper hundreds of millions in debt and with unions controlling most of its employees’ wages and benefits. In 1992, the Daily Mail was purchased by Associated Newspapers, which had recently been bought by Rupert Murdoch’s media empire. In 1993, Associated sold the Daily Mail to Mort Zuckerman, owner of The Atlantic and founder of Hollinger Inc., which also owned the Chicago Sun-Times and Britain’s Daily Telegraph.
Zuckerman attempted to re-invigorate the newspaper with a more centrist agenda, and it seemed as if the Daily News had turned a corner in its fortunes. But then, in 1978, a massive three-month-long union strike cut into profits and lowered circulation. Readership fell, and by the end of the decade the newspaper was saddling itself with a loss of over $1 million a month.
