In the early 1920s, the New York Daily News established itself as America’s first successful tabloid newspaper. Founded by Joseph Medill Patterson, who had been publisher of the Chicago Tribune, the paper attracted readers with sensational crime and scandal coverage, lurid photographs, and entertainment features, including cartoons and reader contests. The Daily News was also an early user of the Associated Press wirephoto service and developed a large staff of photographers. The paper quickly became the city’s biggest publication and, by 1947, was the most widely read newspaper in the country.

The Daily News remained the nation’s biggest paper well into the mid-20th century, even as circulation began to decline due to competition from online and other media sources. In 1978, the News went through a devastating multi-month strike that wiped out about 145,000 daily subscribers. The paper later blamed the loss of readership on a price increase and production problems, but the strike nevertheless marked the beginning of a steep decline in the News’ circulation that would not abate until the advent of digital news publishing.

By the late 1990s, with a new editor-in-chief (first Pete Hamill, then Debby Krenek), the Daily News was regaining its reputation for quality journalism and a willingness to take on controversial topics. It won Pulitzer Prizes for E.R. Shipp’s pieces on race and welfare issues and for Mike McAlary’s reporting on police brutality against Haitian immigrant Abner Louima.

In the mid-1970s, the News rolled out what was perhaps its most famous headline in its history, one that would have had President Ford shaking his head when he saw it on October 30th, 1975: “FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD”. The screamer prompted Ford to veto a bankruptcy bailout for the city, which ultimately led to the mayor’s defeat by Jimmy Carter. The News subsequently dropped its old right-wing editorial stance and adopted a more flexible centrist tone, describing itself as “The Eyes, the Ears, the Honest Voice of New York.”