The July 19, 2009 front page of the Daily News of Los Angeles |
|
| Type | Daily newspaper |
|---|---|
| Format | Broadsheet |
| Owner | MediaNews Group |
| Publisher | Jack Klunder |
| Editor | Carolina Garcia |
| Founded | 1911 (as the Van Nuys Call) |
| Headquarters |
21221 Oxnard Street United States |
| Circulation | 137,344 Daily 145,164 Sunday[1] |
| Official website | dailynews.com |
The Los Angeles Daily News is the second-largest circulating daily newspaper of Los Angeles, California. It is the flagship of the Los Angeles Newspaper Group, a branch of Colorado-based MediaNews Group.
The offices of the Daily News are in Woodland Hills, and much of the paper's reporting is targeted toward readers in the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles. Its stories tend to focus on issues involving valley businesses, education and crime. It endorsed Barack Obama for president in 2008.[2]
The current editor is Carolina Garcia.[3]
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The Daily News began life in 1911 as the Van Nuys Call,[4] morphing into the Van Nuys News after a merger with a competing newspaper called the News. In 1953, the newspaper was renamed the Van Nuys News and Valley Green Sheet,[4] the "green sheet" being a reference for the paper's "Green Sheet" paper that covered the first two and last two pages of Section 1. In the 1970s the Valley News & Green Sheet switched over from the "Green Sheet" that was its trademark and became the Daily News.
In 1971, the newspaper was sold to the Tribune Company by the original family owners. In 1976, to de-emphasize the Van Nuys location, the paper changed its name to the Valley News and Green Sheet, and gradually converted from the four times a week operation to a daily newspaper with paid circulation. Throughout this period, an iconic green stripe continued to appear along the right-hand edge of the front page.
The stripe has since been abandoned. The paper is now delivered daily in a translucent green bag.
In 1981, the paper changed its name to the Daily News of Los Angeles and became a daily publication.[4] In 1985, Tribune sold the paper to Jack Kent Cooke, who spent millions of dollars building state of the art offices and expanding coverage to include the entire San Fernando Valley.
When the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner went out of business November 2, 1989, it left the Daily News the second-biggest paper in the city behind the Los Angeles Times. Upon Cooke's death in 1998, William Dean Singleton's MediaNews purchased the newspaper and consolidated it with his other Southern California MediaNews holdings into the Los Angeles Newspaper Group.
The group briefly published local editions for the Antelope Valley, Santa Clarita and Ventura County. However, to cut costs and consolidate resources, these local editions have been eliminated.
The Daily News bears no relation to an earlier Los Angeles Daily News, a morning newspaper based in Downtown Los Angeles which ceased publication on December 18, 1954, or to the "Los Angeles Daily Post" website, which automatically republishes news feeds in a blog format.
Under Ron Kaye, editor of the Daily News from 2005 to 2008, the paper's news reporting stepped outside the traditional role of U.S. print journalism by supporting and helping to organize the Valley secession movement. The Daily News both shaped the news and reported it in its support of the Valley breakaway movement. Valley secession had been largely neglected by the paper's large crosstown rival, the Los Angeles Times. Valley secession was also ignored by all but the slimmest majority of Valley voters, 50.77 percent, in a 2002 referendum characterized by low voter turnout, even in the San Fernando Valley. The measure was handily defeated by Los Angeles voters citywide and has since become something of a footnote in Los Angeles history.
Kaye's Daily News spotlighted waste and inefficiency in local government and published sharp-toned editorials critical of the same. Among several blockbuster stories in recent years was an investigation finding that employees of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power are paid substantially more than similar employees in other city agencies. Kaye resigned in May 2008 after presiding over a series of buyouts and layoffs that eliminated 20 percent of the newsroom jobs.