The ''Chicago Daily News'' was an afternoon daily newspaper in the

midwestern United States The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of the United States. I ...

, published between 1875 and 1978 in

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, Illinois.

History

The ''Daily News'' was founded by

Melville E. Stone Melville Elijah Stone (August 22, 1848 – February 15, 1929) was an American newspaper publisher, the founder of the ''Chicago Daily News'', and was the general manager of the reorganized Associated Press. Biography Stone's parents were R ...

, Percy Meggy, and William Dougherty in 1875 and began publishing on December 23.

Byron Andrews Byron Andrews (October 25, 1852 – October 15, 1910) was an American journalist for Chicago Inter Ocean and National Tribune, private secretary to U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant on his Industrial Excursions to Mexico and Cuba, a statesman, a lect ...

, fresh out of Hobart College, was one of the first reporters. The paper aimed for a mass readership in contrast to its primary competitor, the ''

Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television ar ...

'', which appealed to the city's elites. The ''Daily News'' was Chicago's first

penny paper Penny press newspapers were cheap, tabloid-style newspapers mass-produced in the United States from the 1830s onwards. Mass production of inexpensive newspapers became possible following the shift from hand-crafted to steam-powered printing. Fa ...

, and the city's most widely read newspaper in the late nineteenth century.

Victor Lawson Victor Fremont Lawson (September 9, 1850 – August 19, 1925) was an American newspaper publisher who headed the ''Chicago Daily News'' from 1876 to 1925.David Paul Nord. "Lawson, Victor Fremont". ''American National Biography Online''. Oxford Univ ...

bought the ''Chicago Daily News'' in 1876 and became its business manager. Stone remained involved as an editor and later bought back an ownership stake, but Lawson took over full ownership again in 1888.

Independent newspaper

During his long tenure at the ''Daily News'', Victor Lawson pioneered many areas of reporting, opening one of the first foreign bureaus among U.S. newspapers in 1898. In 1912, the ''Daily News'' became one of a cooperative of four newspapers, including the ''

New York Globe ''The New York Globe'', also called ''The New York Evening Globe'', was a daily New York City newspaper published from 1904 to 1923, when it was bought and merged into ''The New York Sun''. It is not related to a New York City-based Saturday fami ...

'', ''

The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...

'', and the '' Philadelphia Bulletin'', to form the

Associated Newspapers DMG Media (stylised in lowercase) is an intermediate holding company for Associated Newspapers, Northcliffe Media, Harmsworth Printing, Harmsworth Media and other subsidiaries of Daily Mail and General Trust. It is based at Northcliffe House in ...

syndicate. In 1922, Lawson started one of the first columns devoted to radio. He also introduced many innovations to business operations including advances in newspaper promotion, classified advertising, and syndication of news stories, serials, and comics. A B Blair Chicago Daily News newsroom

Victor Lawson died in August 1925, leaving no instructions in his will regarding the disposition of the ''Daily News''. Walter A. Strong, who was Lawson's business manager, spent the rest of the year raising the capital he needed to buy the ''Daily News''. The Chicago Daily News Corporation, of which Strong was the major stockholder, bought the newspaper for $13.5 million – the highest price paid for a newspaper up to that time. Strong was the president and publisher of the Chicago Daily News Corporation from December 1925 until his death in May 1931. As Lawson's business manager, Strong partnered with

the Fair Department Store The Fair Store was a discount department store founded in 1874 in Chicago, Illinois. History Founder Ernst J. Lehmann decided on the name "The Fair Store" as he felt "the store was like a fair because it offered many different things for sale at ...

to create a new radio station. Strong asked Judith C. Waller to run the new station. When Waller protested that she didn't know anything about running a station. Strong replied "neither do I, but come down and we'll find out." Waller was hired in February 1922 and went on to have a long and distinguished career in broadcasting. What would become WMAQ had its inaugural broadcast April 12, 1922. That same year, the rival ''Chicago Tribune'' began to experiment with radio news at Westinghouse-owned KYW. In 1924 the ''Tribune'' briefly took over station WJAZ, changing its call letters to WGN, then purchased station WDAP outright and permanently transferred the WGN call letters to this second station. The ''Daily News'' would eventually take full ownership of the station and absorb shared band rival WQJ, which was jointly owned by the

Calumet Baking Powder Company The Calumet Baking Powder Company was an American food company established in 1889 in Chicago, Illinois, by salesman William Monroe Wright to manufacture baking powder.

and the Rainbo Gardens ballroom. WMAQ would pioneer many firsts in radio—one of them the first complete

Chicago Cubs The Chicago Cubs are an American professional baseball team based in Chicago. The Cubs compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as part of the National League (NL) Central division. The club plays its home games at Wrigley Field, which is located ...

season broadcast on radio in 1925, hosted by sportswriter-turned-sportscaster

Hal Totten Harold Osborn Totten (July 28, 1901 – April 5, 1985) was an American sportscaster from Chicago who called Major League Baseball games from 1924 to 1950. Early life Totten was born on July 28, 1901 in Newark, New Jersey. He attended public school ...

. In April 1930, WMAQ was organized as a subsidiary corporation with Walter Strong as its chairman of the board, and Judith Waller as vice president and station manager. On August 2, 1929, it was announced that the ''

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'' was consolidating with the ''Daily News'', and the ''Journal'' published its final issue on August 21. By the late 1920s, it was apparent to Walter Strong that his newspaper and broadcast operations needed more space. He acquired the air rights over the railroad tracks that ran along the west side of the Chicago River. He commissioned architects

Holabird & Root The architectural firm now known as Holabird & Root was founded in Chicago in 1880. Over the years, the firm has changed its name several times and adapted to the architectural style then current — from Chicago School to Art Deco to Modern ...

to design a modern building over the tracks that would have newspaper production facilities and radio studios. The 26-floor

Chicago Daily News Building The Riverside Plaza is considered one of Chicago's finest Art Deco buildings. It was originally known as the Chicago Daily News Building. At the time of its completion in 1929, the '' Daily News'' was one of the dominant newspapers in Chicago. Th ...

opened in 1929. It featured a large plaza with a fountain dedicated to Strong's mentor, Victor Lawson, and a mural by

John W. Norton John Warner Norton (7 March 1876 – 7 January 1934) was an American painter and muralist who pioneered the field in the United States. Norton was born in Lockport, Illinois, the son of John Lyman Norton and Ada Clara Gooding Norton. The family ...

depicting the

newspaper production process Newspaper production process. Newspaper production is an act that starts from the gathering of news stories, articles, opinions, advertorials and advertisements to printing and folding of the hard copy. Usually, the news items are printed onto ne ...

. The

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

structure became a Chicago landmark, and stands today under the name

Riverside Plaza Riverside Plaza is a modernist and brutalist apartment complex designed by Ralph Rapson that opened in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1973. Situated on the edge of downtown Minneapolis in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood, and next to both the Univers ...

. In 1930, the radio station obtained a license for an experimental television station, W9XAP, but had already begun transmitting from it just prior to its being granted. Working with

Sears Roebuck Sears, Roebuck and Co. ( ), commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began a ...

stores by providing them with the receivers, those present at the stores were able to see

Bill Hay William Charles Hay (born December 9, 1935) is a Canadian former ice hockey centre who played eight seasons in the National Hockey League (NHL) for the Chicago Black Hawks. After his playing career, he served as the CEO of the Calgary Flames. ...

, (the announcer for ''

Amos 'n' Andy ''Amos 'n' Andy'' is an American radio sitcom about black characters, initially set in Chicago and later in the Harlem section of New York City. While the show had a brief life on 1950s television with black actors, the 1928 to 1960 radio show ...

''), present a variety show from the Daily News Building, on August 27, 1930.

Ulises Armand Sanabria Ulises Armand Sanabria (September 5, 1906 January 6, 1969) was born in southern Chicago of Puerto Rican and French-American parents. Sanabria is known for development of mechanical televisions and early terrestrial television broadcasts. Care ...

was the television pioneer behind this and other early Chicago television experiments. In 1931 ''The Daily News'' sold WMAQ to

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

. In its heyday as an independent newspaper from the 1930s to 1950s the ''Daily News'' was widely syndicated and boasted a first-class foreign news service. It became known for its distinctive, aggressive writing style which 1920s editor Henry Justin Smith likened to a daily novel. This style became the hallmark of the newspaper: "For generations", as Wayne Klatt puts it in ''Chicago Journalism: A History'', "newspeople had been encouraged to write on the order of

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian e ...

, but the Daily News was instructing its staff to present facts in cogent short paragraphs, which forced rivals to do the same."Google Books
/ref> In the 1950s, city editor Clement Quirk Lane (whose son John would become

Walter Cronkite Walter Leland Cronkite Jr. (November 4, 1916 – July 17, 2009) was an American broadcast journalist who served as anchorman for the ''CBS Evening News'' for 19 years (1962–1981). During the 1960s and 1970s, he was often cited as "the mo ...

's executive producer) issued a memo to the staff that has become something of a memorial of the paper's house style, a copy of which can be found on Lane's entry.

Knight Newspapers and Field Enterprises

After a long period of ownership by Knight Newspapers (later Knight Ridder), the paper was acquired in 1959 by

Field Enterprises Field Enterprises, Inc. was a private holding company that operated from the 1940s to the 1980s, founded by Marshall Field III and others, whose main assets were the ''Chicago Sun'' and ''Parade'' magazine. For various periods of time, Field Enter ...

, owned by heirs of the former owner of the

Marshall Field and Company Marshall Field & Company (commonly known as Marshall Field's) was an upscale department store in Chicago, Illinois. Founded in the 19th century, it grew to become a large chain before Macy's, Inc acquired it in 2005. Its eponymous founder, Mar ...

department store A department store is a retail establishment offering a wide range of consumer goods in different areas of the store, each area ("department") specializing in a product category. In modern major cities, the department store made a dramatic app ...

chain. Field already owned the morning ''

Chicago Sun-Times The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the ''Chicago T ...

'', and the ''Daily News'' moved into the ''Sun-Times'' building on North Wabash Avenue. A few years later Mike Royko became the paper's lead columnist, and quickly rose to local and national prominence. However, the Field years were mostly a period of decline for the newspaper, partly due to management decisions but also due to demographic changes; the circulation of afternoon dailies generally declined with the rise of television, and downtown newspapers suffered as readers moved to the suburbs. In 1977 the ''Daily News'' was redesigned and added features intended to increase its appeal to younger readers, but the changes did not reverse the paper's continuing decline in circulation. The ''Chicago Daily News'' published its last edition on Saturday, March 4, 1978. As reported in ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'', later in 1978, Lloyd H Weston, president, editor and publisher of Addison Leader Newspapers, Inc., a group of weekly tabloids in the west and northwest suburbs—obtained rights to the ''Chicago Daily News'' trademark. Under a new corporation, CDN Publishing Co., Inc., based in DuPage County, Weston published a number of special editions of the ''Chicago Daily News'', including one celebrating the

Chicago Auto Show The Chicago Auto Show is held annually in February at Chicago's McCormick Place convention center. It is the largest auto show in North America. History Samuel Miles, formerly a promoter of bicycle shows, produced the first "official" Chic ...

. The following year, a Rosemont-based group headed by former Illinois governor

Richard B. Ogilvie Richard Buell Ogilvie (February 22, 1923 – May 10, 1988) was the 35th governor of Illinois and served from 1969 to 1973. A wounded combat veteran of World War II, he became known as the mafia-fighting sheriff of Cook County, Illinois, in t ...

contracted to purchase CDN Publishing, with the expressed intention of publishing the ''Chicago Daily News'' as a weekend edition beginning that August. Weston hosted a party celebrating the signing of the contract with Ogilvie at the iconic Pump Room in the Ambassador Chicago Hotel. The gala was attended by hundreds of the city's well-known names in politics, publishing. broadcasting and advertising. The next day, Ogilvie reneged on the deal. The check he signed as payment to Weston bounced. And his corporation filed for federal bankruptcy protection. Weston's last edition of the ''Chicago Daily News'' featured extensive photo coverage of the October 4, 1979, visit to Chicago of

Pope John Paul II Pope John Paul II ( la, Ioannes Paulus II; it, Giovanni Paolo II; pl, Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his ...

. In 1984, Weston sold his rights to the ''Chicago Daily News'' trademark to

Rupert Murdoch Keith Rupert Murdoch ( ; born 11 March 1931) is an Australian-born American business magnate. Through his company News Corp, he is the owner of hundreds of local, national, and international publishing outlets around the world, including ...

, who, at the time, was owner and publisher of the ''

''. The headquarters of the ''Daily News'' and ''Sun-Times'' was located at 401 North Wabash before the building was demolished. It is now the site of

Trump International Hotel and Tower Trump International Hotel may refer to: Current Five buildings are named Trump Hotels with four owned/operated by the Trump organization: * Trump International Hotel and Tower (Chicago) * Trump International Hotel and Tower (New York City) * Tru ...

Pulitzer Prizes

The ''Chicago Daily News'' was awarded the Pulitzer Prize thirteen times. *

1925 Events January * January 1 ** The Syrian Federation is officially dissolved, the State of Aleppo and the State of Damascus having been replaced by the State of Syria. * January 3 – Benito Mussolini makes a pivotal speech in the Italia ...

Reporting * 1929 Correspondence * 1933 Correspondence * 1938 Editorial Cartooning * 1943 Reporting * 1947 Editorial Cartooning * 1950 Meritorious Public Service * 1951 International Reporting * 1957 Meritorious Public Service * 1963 Meritorious Public Service * 1969 Editorial Cartooning *

1970 Events January * January 1 – Unix time epoch reached at 00:00:00 UTC. * January 5 – The 7.1 Tonghai earthquake shakes Tonghai County, Yunnan province, China, with a maximum Mercalli intensity scale, Mercalli intensity of X (''Extrem ...

National Reporting *

1972 Within the context of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) it was the longest year ever, as two leap seconds were added during this 366-day year, an event which has not since been repeated. (If its start and end are defined using Solar time, me ...

Commentary

References

External links

WMAQ History
* ttp://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM1XZ2 Chicago Daily News Building (Riverside Plaza) – Chicago
''Chicago Daily News'' and Field Enterprises Records, 1858–2007
at

the Newberry Library The Newberry Library is an independent research library, specializing in the humanities and located on Washington Square in Chicago, Illinois. It has been free and open to the public since 1887. Its collections encompass a variety of topics rela ...