 | |
 The front page ofNewsday on February 21, 2012 | |
| Type | Daily newspaper |
|---|---|
| Format | Tabloid |
| Owner(s) | Newsday Media (Patrick Dolan) |
| Publisher | Debby Krenek |
| Editor | Don Hudson |
| Founded | September 3, 1940; 85 years ago (1940-09-03) |
| Headquarters | 6 Corporate Center Drive[1] Melville,New York, U.S. 11747 |
| Circulation | 75,300 Average print circulation[2] 47,000 Digital Subscribers[3] |
| ISSN | 0278-5587 |
| OCLC number | 5371847 |
| Website | newsday |
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Newsday is a dailynewspaper in the United States primarily servingNassau andSuffolk counties onLong Island, New York, although it is also sold throughout theNew York metropolitan area. The slogan of the newspaper is "Newsday, Your Eye on LI", and formerly it was "Newsday, the Long Island Newspaper".[4] The newspaper's headquarters are located inMelville, New York.
Since its founding in 1940,Newsday has won 19Pulitzer Prizes. Historically, it penetrated the New York City market. As of 2025,Newsday is theeighth-largest circulation newspaper in the United States with aprint circulation of 75,300.
Founded byAlicia Patterson and her husband,Harry Guggenheim, the first edition ofNewsday was September 3, 1940, published fromHempstead.[5]
Until undergoing a major redesign in the 1970s,Newsday copied theDaily News format of short stories and numerous pictures. Patterson was fired as a writer at her father'sDaily News in her early 20s after getting the basic facts of a divorce wrong in a published report. She later went on to publish and editNewsday. Following Patterson's death in 1963, Guggenheim became publisher and editor.
In 1967, Guggenheim turned over the publisher position toBill Moyers and continued as president and editor-in-chief. But Guggenheim was disappointed by the liberal drift of the newspaper under Moyers, criticizing what he called the "left-wing" coverage of the anti-Vietnam War protests.[6][7]
The two ultimately split over the1968 presidential election, with Guggenheim authoring an editorial supportingRichard Nixon when Moyers supportedHubert Humphrey.[8]
In 1970, Guggenheim sold his majority share to the then-conservativeTimes-Mirror Company over the attempt of newspaper employees to block the sale, even though Moyers offered $10 million more than the Times-Mirror purchase price; Moyers resigned a few days later.[6][9][10] Guggenheim, who died a year later, had Moyers removed from his will.[11]
After the competingLong Island Press (not to be confused with the alternative weekly of the same name) ceased publication in 1977,Newsday launched a separateQueens edition, followed by a New York City edition dubbedNew York Newsday. In June 2000, Times Mirror merged with theTribune Company, partneringNewsday with the New York City television stationWPIX, also owned by Tribune.
With the Times Mirror-Tribune merger, the newspaper founded byAlicia Patterson was now owned by the company that was founded by her great-grandfather,Joseph Medill, who owned theChicago Tribune and, until 1991, also owned her father'sDaily News. Tribune sold theDaily News to British newspaper magnateRobert Maxwell.
Following Maxwell's death in 1992, the family publishing empire collapsed, andMortimer Zuckerman purchased theDaily News.[12]
In April 2008,News Corporation, headed by CEORupert Murdoch, attempted to purchaseNewsday for US$580 million.[13] This was followed by a matching bid from Zuckerman[14] and a $680 million bid fromCablevision.[15]
In May 2008, News Corporation withdrew its bid,[16] and on May 12, 2008,Newsday reported that Cablevision would purchase the paper for $650 million.[17] The sale was completed July 29, 2008.[18]
In 2016,Altice, aNetherlands-based multinational telecommunications company, acquired Cablevision, includingNewsday and News 12.[19][20] However, Altice then sold a majority (75%) stake inNewsday back to Cablevision's former ownerCharles Dolan and his son Patrick, making Patrick the CEO ofNewsday.[21][22] Altice disposed of its remaining stake inNewsday at the end of July 2018, which, combined with Charles Dolan's transfer of shares to son Patrick, made Patrick the sole owner ofNewsday.[23]
In July 2020,Newsday received $10 million infederal government loans fromPaycheck Protection Program during theCOVID-19 pandemic to pay salaries for 500 employees.[24]
In 2022, Don Hudson was named editor.[25]
In March 2023,Newsday launched NewsdayTV, featuring formerNews 12 Networks anchor Elisa DiStefano. NewsdayTV is available online and through major streaming outlets. NewsdayTV takes a similar approach to news as other Long Island news outlets such as News12.
Despite having atabloid format,Newsday is not known for being sensationalistic, as are other local daily tabloids, such as the New YorkDaily News and theNew York Post.[26][27] This causes Newsday to sometimes be referred to as "the respectable tabloid".[7]
In 2004, the alternative weekly newspaperLong Island Press (which is not related to the defunct daily of the same name) wrote thatNewsday has used its clout to influence local politics inNassau andSuffolk Counties.[28]
Bill Moyers briefly served as publisher.[29] During the tenure of publisherRobert M. Johnson in the 1980s, Newsday made a major push into New York City. The paper's roster of columnists and critics has includedCathy Young,Jimmy Breslin,Barbara Garson,Normand Poirier,Murray Kempton,Gail Collins,Pete Hamill,Sydney Schanberg, Robert Reno (died 2012),Jim Dwyer, sportswriterMike Lupica, music criticTim Page, and television criticMarvin Kitman. The paper featured bothadvice columnistsAnn Landers andDear Abby for several years.
From 1985 to 2005, Michael Mandelbaum wrote a regular foreign affairs analysis column forNewsday. Writer and biographerRobert Caro was an investigative reporter. Its features section has included television reporters Verne Gay and Diane Werts, TV/film feature writerFrank Lovece, and film critic Rafer Guzman.Newsday carries the syndicated columnistFroma Harrop.Pulitzer Prize winnerWalt Handelsman's editorial political cartoons animation are a nationally syndicated feature ofNewsday. In the 1980s, a new design director, Robert Eisner, guided the transition into digital design and color printing.[citation needed]
Newsday created and sponsored a "Long Island at the Crossroads" advisory board in 1978, to recommend regional goals, supervise local government, and liaison with state and Federal officials.[30][31][32] It lasted approximately a decade.
On March 21, 2011,Newsday redesigned its front page, scrapping thenameplate and font used since the 1960s in favor of a sans-serif wordmark.[33]
In 2004, a circulation scandal revealed that the paper's daily and Sunday circulation had been inflated by 16.9% and 14.5%, respectively, in the auditing period September 30, 2002 to September 30, 2003.[34] The Audit Bureau of Circulation adjusted average weekday circulation to 481,816 from 579,599; average Saturday circulation to 392,649 from 416,830; and average Sunday circulation to 574,081 from 671,820, and instituted twice-yearly audits.[34]
In 2008,Newsday was ranked 10th in terms of newspaper circulation in the United States.[12]
On October 28, 2009,Newsday changed its web site to apaid-subscriber only model. Newsday.com would open its front page, classified ads, movie listings, and school closings to all site visitors, but access beyond this content would require a weekly fee – US$5 as of 2010. This fee would be waived for subscribers of the print edition of the paper, as well as for subscribers to parent-company Cablevision's Internet service.[35] Through its first three months only 35 non-Optimum, non-Newsday subscribers signed up for the paid website.[36]
Newsday has won 19Pulitzer Prizes and has been a finalist for 20 additional (if no individual is listed, award is forNewsday staff):[37]
Numerous politicians in both counties, county workers, directors of community groups and other sources claim that 'Newsday' uses its position as Long Island's only daily paper to strong-arm county officials, nonprofit directors, local leaders and rival publications and even to influence pieces of legislation — often through fear, intimidation and other anti-competitive practices — to further its political or commercial agenda.
