Thirty years after the New York Newsday's inception, no newspaper has replicated its unique character.
The Daily News Moves and the Rise of Competition in New York City's Newspaper Landscape
Thirty years ago this month, a significant event took place in the world of New York City newspapers. New York Newsday, a newspaper that sought to blend the solid journalism of the New York Times with the aggressively colorful coverage of the Daily News and the New York Post, ceased publication.
The newspaper's journey began in 1985, when it moved into offices on Forty-Second Street, sharing a powerful Washington bureau with Long Island's Newsday, from which it sprang, as well as a handful of foreign correspondents. However, its fate was not to remain there for long.
In 1990 and 1991, a catastrophic strike at the Daily News altered the equation for New York Newsday. This event, coupled with its owner, the Times Mirror Co.'s, growing impatience with the low profitability of the newspaper, led to a period of intense competition.
The Daily News and the New York Post began to compete more fiercely with New York Newsday. The Daily News hired aggressively, marketed itself aggressively, broke more stories, and stole some of the thunder from New York Newsday. The Times bulked up its Metro staff even more, adding to the competitive pressure.
New York Newsday had a staff of nearly a hundred reporters (unionized), a generously staffed city desk, bureaus in City Hall, two boroughs, police headquarters, and the courts; an investigative unit; a features section; a fat Sunday edition; editorial and op-ed pages; and movie critics, fashion reporters, a cartoonist, a restaurant reviewer, and a murderers' row of columnists. Despite this, it struggled to keep up with the competition.
The newspaper was printed on Long Island, which required early deadlines that missed some big stories in the pre-internet era. To indicate its commitment to staying in the game, New York Newsday built a new plant across the Hudson River in Jersey City. However, it was not enough to save the newspaper.
In 1995, New York Newsday was sold to Tribune Company, but the specific details of the transaction after the death of a person in 1995 are not immediately clear. Around the same time, Forst, a columnist at the Daily News, was offered a job at New York Newsday. However, the newspaper ceased publication on July 16, 1995.
The Daily News did not go away, but when real estate developer Mort Zuckerman bought it, it entered a new golden age. The newspaper put new immigrants front and center, recognising them as potential readers. It covered all kinds of stories from far-flung neighborhoods, not just the ones where someone got shot.
The Daily News had a slogan: "Truth, Justice and the Comics." It may have lost the battle to New York Newsday, but its spirit lives on in the vibrant newspaper landscape of New York City.
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