The New York Daily News is no longer printed. But the newspaper’s name and its distinctive four-faced clock remain in the building at 4 New York Plaza in Lower Manhattan. A day after employees were told they could no longer go to work, the company that owns the tabloid announced Wednesday that it had formally closed the newsroom and would not resume operations there. The company, Tribune Publishing, also notified workers at the offices of other newspapers owned by it that they would not be returning to their jobs.
It’s been a turbulent couple of years for the city’s largest-circulation newspaper since the hedge fund that controls it, Alden Global Capital, bought it in 2017. The Daily News has reorganized, cut staff and canceled print editions as it struggles to survive in the digital age. It has also slashed pay and imposed buyouts. The rapid-fire changes have sparked anxiety among journalists and spurred some to seek local benefactors to “save” their publications.
The Daily News was founded in 1878 and is the oldest college daily newspaper in the United States. In its early days, the paper focused on political wrongdoing, such as the Teapot Dome Scandal in the 1920s, and social intrigue, such as the romance between Wallis Simpson and King Edward VIII that led to his abdication. It also emphasized photography; it was an early user of the Associated Press wirephoto service and built a large staff of photographers.
In the decades that followed, the Daily News fell behind its rivals in circulation, but it remained one of the country’s top-selling papers. By the 21st century, it was a daily tabloid that was increasingly losing its grip on sensationalism but continued to focus on local news and sports. Its owner, real estate developer and media mogul Mortimer Zuckerman, bought it out of bankruptcy in 1993 and sold it to Tribune Publishing — then known as Tronc — in 2017 for $1.
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