Founded in 1919, the Daily News was one of the first successful tabloid newspapers in the United States. Its early success was due to sensational crime, scandal, and violence coverage as well as lurid photographs and other entertainment features. It attracted a large readership and in the 1940s reached its peak circulation of 2.4 million copies daily. The newspaper also was an early user of wirephotography and had a large staff of photographers. The paper’s brassy, pictorial style was a model for many other tabloid newspapers.

Throughout the 1990s, under editors-in-chief Pete Hamill and Debby Krenek, the Daily News developed a reputation for protecting the First Amendment and the rights of New York City citizens, especially those that the newspaper felt were not being adequately represented in other media. The paper won a Pulitzer Prize in 1996 for E.R. Shipp’s pieces on race and welfare issues and another in 1998 for Mike McAlary’s coverage of police brutality against Haitian immigrant Abner Louima. In 1999 the Daily News was the first metropolitan newspaper in the country to fully convert to an electronic publishing system.

In the 21st century, with a decline in readership, the newspaper has sought to reestablish itself as a major news source. In the wake of the 2016 presidential election, it has reverted to its roots and employed a more provocative tone and style, including giving senator Ted Cruz the middle finger via the Statue of Liberty’s hand and rehashing the famous 1975 headline: “Ford to City: Drop Dead.”

The newspaper also has expanded into television and radio, with the launch in 1948 of WPIX (Channel 11 in New York) whose call letters were based on its nickname as “New York’s Picture Newspaper”; and in 1948, the News bought what was then the Associated Press radio station, which still operates as WFAN-FM. It has also launched the monthly insert BET Weekend for African Americans and the quarterly Caribbean Monthly.

The paper also is a prominent voice in New York politics and covers all New York sports teams, including the Yankees, Mets, Giants, and Jets. The New York Daily News is headquartered in the iconic art deco Daily News Building at 450 West 33rd Street in Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood, adjacent to Penn Station and straddling the railroad tracks leading into the subway. The newspaper has been owned by Mortimer B. Zuckerman since 1995. The company also owns the NBC affiliate TV station, WCBS-TV, which is based in the News Building. The Daily News is a member of the New York Observer Co., a group of privately owned newspapers that is controlled by the family of publisher Mortimer B. Zuckerman and that publishes the Observer, the New York Post, and other local publications. The Observer is the largest publisher of general interest and local news in the state of New York.