For more than 130 years, daily news has been a primary source of information and debate at Yale. In its time, countless of our student editors, writers, and contributors have gone on to prominent careers in journalism and public service.
The Yale Daily News is a morning tabloid newspaper published every weekday when classes are in session. The paper covers a wide variety of topics including national and local news, sports, arts, science, entertainment, politics, business, and more. The News prides itself on its rigorous journalism, and its staff has won numerous awards for their work, including Pulitzer prizes.
This year, the News and ProPublica won a Pulitzer Prize for their joint investigation of how authorities use laws to force people out of their homes. The News is also well known for its zesty headlines, including the classic “Ford to City: Drop Dead” in 1975. The paper has been based in the Daily News Building on 42nd Street since 1929, an iconic New York landmark designed by architects John Mead Howells and Raymond Hood.
In 1919, Joseph Medill Patterson launched the New York Daily News as a competitor to the Chicago Tribune, where he was publisher. The Daily News was the first successful American tabloid and reached its peak circulation in 1947, with 2.4 million copies a day.
After the newspaper’s heyday, it fell on hard times. In the 1980s, a labor dispute nearly brought it to its knees and in the 1990s the News lost much of its circulation to online rivals and television news programs. In 1993, real estate magnate Mort Zuckerman bought the Daily News in a bid to revive it and invest in a new color printing press. The investment paid off; the News returned to profitability in 1994, and its coverage grew more serious.
Over the past near-century, the Daily News has built a reputation for protecting the rights of its readers and citizens of New York, especially those who are often left without a voice. It has won a number of Pulitzer Prizes, including in 1996 for E.R. Shipp’s pieces on welfare and race issues, and in 1998 for Mike McAlary’s coverage of police brutality against Abner Louima.
In the modern era of digital news, the Daily News has adapted by shifting more attention to its website and mobile apps. In 2018, it was purchased by Chicago-based Tronc, a company that also publishes the Los Angeles Times and other newspapers. Despite the change in ownership, the Daily News has kept its commitment to quality journalism and remains the only major newspaper to win a Pulitzer this year.