Using the Daily News in the Classroom

Daily News

News is a tabloid newspaper founded in 1919 in New York City. Originally known as the Illustrated Daily News, it was the first U.S. daily printed in tabloid format and reached its highest circulation in 1947. Currently owned by Tronc (formerly Tribune Publishing Company), the Daily News has won eleven Pulitzer Prizes. It is the ninth most widely circulated newspaper in the United States. The Daily News is noted for its extensive city news coverage, celebrity gossip, sports, classified ads, and an opinion section. The newspaper has a reputation for its liberal bias and is often contrasted with its conservative rival, the New York Post.

The Daily News Historical Archive is an online collection of digitized issues of the Yale Daily News, the oldest college daily newspaper in the United States. The archive provides access to more than 140 years of YDN reporting, including scanned copies of the original print editions and digital reproductions of PDF versions. The archive is made possible by funding from the Yale Library. The Library also holds the full text of many past editions in its collections.

Using breaking news articles in the classroom is a great way to engage students and get them talking about current events. It is also an ideal way to teach about the differences between print and online media. Students can practice their reading skills by locating key information and answering questions about the article.

When students are ready to move on to more in-depth and analytical articles, you can introduce the concept of editorial decisions. Ask them to think about how a particular story might be changed if it were written by a different journalist and to discuss why the changes might be made. This will help them learn about the process of writing journalism and how a writer uses their own opinions to make decisions when creating an article.

While the New York Daily News has long been one of the country’s top newspapers, it has been struggling to maintain its high circulation numbers. In 2017 it was announced that the Daily News would be sold to a Chicago-based company called Tronc for $1. It has since undergone a major overhaul and is now primarily distributed digitally.

Unlike other popular dailies of the time, which were often written by freelancers, the Daily News was almost entirely staff-written. Its writers and reporters found abundant subject matter to fill its pages—everything from political scandals such as the Teapot Dome Scandal to social intrigue like the romance between Wallis Simpson and King Edward VIII that led to his abdication. The News’s early use of the Associated Press wirephoto service helped it develop a strong photographic department. The newspaper’s former headquarters at 220 East 42nd Street, designed by John Mead Howells and Raymond Hood, was a famous architectural landmark. It was later replaced by the 450 West 33rd Street building, now called Manhattan West.