A newspaper is a publication that is printed on a daily basis and contains news and articles. Its main function is to inform its readers about what has happened and what is happening in the world around them. It also provides analysis and comment about the events of the day. Most newspapers are based on written text, although some publish audio and video as well.
A typical newspaper will have four main departments: editorial, production/printing, circulation, and advertising. In addition, most major papers have non-newspaper-specific departments that are found in other businesses of comparable size, such as accounting, human resources, and information technology.
The term “daily news” is often used in reference to the editorial content of a newspaper, but it can also refer to any aspect of the newspaper’s business, including its finances and distribution. Most papers will have a daily circulation figure, which is an estimate of how many people receive the newspaper on a given day. This number is usually expressed as a percentage of the population in the area covered by the newspaper.
Most newspapers are aimed at a broad spectrum of readers, usually geographically defined; there are also some which focus on particular groups, such as business readers or sports enthusiasts. More specialized still are some weekly newspapers, which may serve communities as small as a single city or region.
The Yale Daily News (YDN) is the oldest college daily newspaper in the United States and is published every weekday when classes are in session. Founded on January 28, 1878, the News is privately owned and financially independent. The YDN Historical Archive allows the public to access digitized versions of the paper and includes over 140 years of YDN coverage. The YDN also publishes a weekly Friday supplement known as WEEKEND, a Yale Daily News Magazine and several special issues each year, including the annual Yale-Harvard Game Day Issue and Commencement Issue, as well as a number of issues celebrating the YDN’s commitment to Yale’s indigenous, black, Asian, and Pacific Islander communities in partnership with those communities’ respective student centers and organizations.
In 1924, the News opened a studio in the Manhattan neighborhood of Hell’s Kitchen and moved its offices to 450 West 33rd Street in 1948. The building, which is now the world headquarters of the Associated Press, once straddled railroad tracks that led into Pennsylvania Station. During this time, the News launched WPIX (Channel 11 in New York City), whose call letters were taken from its nickname of “New York’s Picture Newspaper,” and the first FM radio station called WWOR-FM, which was simulcast on its AM namesake.
The News has won dozens of Pulitzer Prizes and other awards for its work, and was the first newspaper to win an Emmy Award for outstanding television newscasting in 1985. The paper also has a notable reputation for investigative reporting and is recognized as the most influential of its kind in the United States. The News has been credited with bringing the concept of tabloid journalism to the U.S., and was the first to be printed in a compact format, later popularized by The Daily Telegraph in Britain.
