Daily News is a current affairs magazine for students and aspirants to read about the latest happenings around the world. The newspaper focuses on political, economic and social issues. It is published on a weekly basis by Independent News & Media SA and was originally known as The Natal Daily News between 1936 and 1962 and the Mercantile Daily News before that.
The paper has been a major player in the history of South African journalism. In the 20th century it was a leading voice for populism, supporting isolationism in the early 1940s and later shifting to a liberal populist stance. It was also a champion of civil rights and the first to report on the civil war in Lebanon.
In the 21st century, as technology has decimated the industry and local newspapers have been closing at a rapid rate, the role of the newspaper has never been more critical to community life. Yet many citizens do not have access to the information they need, creating ‘news deserts’ that make it difficult to separate fact from fiction and gossip in their daily lives. The story of what happens when a local newspaper dies is one that has been repeated in communities across the country, but the societal impact is still being explored.
Death of the Daily News, a deeply reported work by Andrew Conte, seeks to answer this question by examining the town of McKeesport, Pennsylvania, where a daily newspaper disappeared in 2015 and its aftermath. In this thoughtful, compassionate book, Conte looks at how the loss of the local newspaper affected residents and demonstrates that it is possible to rebuild the public square in a new era.
Conte is a skilled reporter and he is unflinching in his depiction of the decline of the Daily News. He is also a good writer and he tells the story in a compelling way that will appeal to lay readers as well as scholars.
A rich and fascinating study of a community grappling with its loss of local journalism, this is a timely and necessary anatomy of what happens when a newspaper dies. It is a reminder that local news is crucial and that there are ways for it to survive in the new media landscape.
The Yale Daily News is the nation’s oldest college newspaper and serves the campus of Yale University in New Haven, CT. The News is financially and editorially independent of the university. Founded on January 28, 1878, the News is the only newspaper with the authority to write about students, faculty and alumni at Yale-New Haven. The News is open to anyone with a connection to the Yale-New Haven community, but the News editorial staff will only publish pieces that are clearly and defensibly written and that address issues of concern to the Yale-New Haven community.
The News also publishes a Friday supplement known as WKND, a weekly News Magazine and special issues each year that celebrate the diversity of the community including Yale’s indigenous, Black, Latino and Asian American students.