Daily News is a New York City newspaper that combines news and entertainment, including celebrity gossip and comics, with intense city news coverage. The paper is also known for its controversial crime reporting, which often featured lurid photographs and detailed accounts of murders and other serious incidents. It was founded in 1919 as the Illustrated Daily News, and became the first successful tabloid newspaper in the United States when it adopted its current name in 1930. It was a major influence on other American newspapers and a model for the fictional Daily Planet in the first two Superman films. It also specialized in social intrigue, such as the romance between Wallis Simpson and King Edward VIII that led to his abdication. The News was an early user of Associated Press wirephoto services and developed a large staff of photographers.

In its 20th-century heyday, the Daily News was one of America’s best-selling newspapers. In its brawny metro tabloid era, it dug into crime and corruption and earned Pulitzer Prizes for commentary and feature writing. In its later years, it struggled to keep up with its even more sensational rival the New York Post. Its circulation plummeted as readers turned to online news sources and the newspaper lost advertisers to competing television and radio stations. In 2017, the Daily News was sold by owner Mortimer Zuckerman to Tronc, a Chicago-based media company. The News’s newspaper building on East 42nd Street, designed by John Mead Howells and Raymond Hood, is a historic landmark that served as the backdrop for several scenes in the first two Superman films.

The Yale Daily News Historical Archive, established in 2021 with a generous gift from an anonymous alumnus, is the world’s oldest college newspaper and the most comprehensive archive of a daily metropolitan newspaper in existence. The Archives collects every issue of the paper from its founding in 1878 to the present, with a partial run from 1904. In addition to the daily newspaper, the Yale Daily News publishes special issues each year honoring the university’s Indigenous, Black, Latino and Asian American communities, as well as the Commencement and Game Day Issues. The Archive is a vital resource for scholars and students studying the history of American journalism and the changing ways in which people consume news.