The Yale Daily News Archive
News articles present facts, analyze a situation or issue and suggest possible courses of action. They may also include an opinion, editorial or letter to the editor section. News articles can be general in scope or can focus on a specific community or publication. They may be published daily, weekly or bi-weekly and can have a wide readership or limited circulation. News articles can be written in a variety of genres such as hard news, feature stories, sports or entertainment.
In its 20th-century heyday, the Daily News was a brawny metro tabloid that thrived when it dug into crime and corruption. It served as the model for the Daily Planet in the Superman movies and won Pulitzer Prizes in commentary, feature writing and international reporting. Today the paper has a much smaller staff and smaller readership, but remains a respected source of local and national news and sports.
The Yale Daily News Historical Archive is a collection of archived issues of the Yale Daily News, America’s oldest college newspaper, dating back to 1878. It was donated to the University in 2021 by an anonymous Yale alumnus. The gift facilitated the migration of the Archive to a new, user-friendly platform and enables continued access and improvement of the Archive.
Yale Daily News is the nation’s oldest college daily newspaper and serves the Yale and New Haven communities each weekday while school is in session. Students play a key role in the News’ editorial, production and business operations. Many student editors, writers and contributors have gone on to prominent careers in journalism and public service including William F. Buckley, Lan Samantha Chang, John Hersey, Joseph Lieberman and Sargent Shriver.
Breaking news from around the world and around campus provides students with a range of interesting informational content to read, comment on and discuss in class. Breaking news articles can also be used to develop literacy skills as students work together to determine the relevance and importance of a story to their lives and the world around them.
In recent months, the owners of the New York Daily News and Chicago Tribune have been forced to let go dozens of staffers in the wake of a cost-slashing hedge fund takeover by Heath Freeman’s Alden Global Capital. These layoffs have added to the gloom already permeating New York’s media scene, where the New York Times and other top publications have seen their print sales erode as readers flock to digital alternatives. News organizations are trying to boost their credibility by appointing ombudsmen, developing ethics policies and training, using more stringent corrections policies, communicating their processes and rationale to their readers and asking sources to review articles before they are published. They also are working to make their newsrooms more diverse. This is especially important to younger readers, a demographic that is being underserved by traditional newspapers.