Chicago Daily News

During the longtime tenure of Victor F. Lawson, the Chicago Daily News pioneered certain areas of reporting, opening one of the first foreign bureaus among U.S. newspapers in 1898 and starting one of the first columns devoted to radio in 1922. Lawson introduced many innovations to the business including advancements in newspaper promotion, classified advertising, and syndication of news stories, serials, and comics.[3]

Editor A. B. Blair 1915.

In 1912, the Daily News was one of a cooperative of four newspapers, including the New York Globe, The Boston Globe, and the Philadelphia Bulletin, to form the Associated Newspapers syndicate.

The Chicago Daily News 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, but the Daily News was instructing its staff to present facts in cogent short paragraphs, which forced rivals to do the same.” Google Books. In the 1950s, city editor Clement Quirk Lane (whose son John would become Walter Cronkite'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.

In its heyday from the 1930s to 1950s it was widely syndicated and boasted a first-class foreign news service.[4]

In 1922, 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.[5]

The Daily News entered into a partnership with The Fair Department Store to launch WGU,[6] which would later be renamed WMAQ. The newspaper would eventually take full ownership of the station and absorb shared band rival WQJ, which was jointly owned by the Calumet Baking Powder Company and the Rainbo Gardens ballroom.[7][8][9] WMAQ would pioneer many firsts in radio—one of them the first complete Chicago Cubs season broadcast on radio in 1925, hosted by sportswriter-turned-sportscaster Hal Totten.[10]

On August 2, 1929, it was announced that the Chicago Daily Journal was consolidating with the Daily News, and the Journal published its final issue on August 21.[11]

In 1930, the station obtained a license for an experimental television station, W9XAP, but had already begun transmitting from it just prior to its being granted.[12][13] Working with Sears Roebuck stores by providing them with the receivers, those present at the stores were able to see Bill Hay, (the announcer for Amos 'n' Andy), present a variety show from the Daily News building, on August 27, 1930.[14][15] Ulises Armand Sanabria was the television pioneer behind this and other early Chicago television experiments. In 1931 The Daily News sold WMAQ to NBC.[16]

In 1929, it moved into a new 26-floor headquarters building at 400 West Madison Street. Designed by architects Holabird & Root, the Art Deco structure became a Chicago landmark, and stands today under the name Riverside Plaza. It featured a mural by John W. Norton depicting the newspaper production process.[17]

Sun-Times and Daily News headquarters

After a long period of ownership by Knight Newspapers (later Knight Ridder), the paper was acquired in 1959 by Field Enterprises, owned by heirs of the former owner of the Marshall Field and Company department store chain. Field already owned the morning Chicago Sun-Times, 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.[1]

As reported in the Wall Street Journal, 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 following year, a Rosemont-based group headed by former Illinois governor Richard B. Ogilvie 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 Oct. 4, 1979 visit to Chicago of Pope John Paul II.

In 1984, Weston sold his rights to the Chicago Daily News trademark to Rupert Murdoch, who, at the time, was owner and publisher of the Chicago Sun-Times.

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.