TheDayton Daily News (DDN) is a dailynewspaper published inDayton, Ohio. It is owned byCox Enterprises, Inc., a privately held global conglomerate headquartered inAtlanta, Georgia, United States, with approximately 55,000 employees and $21 billion in total revenue. Its major operating subsidiaries areCox Communications,Cox Automotive, and Ohio Newspapers (including theDayton Daily News,Springfield News-Sun and theJournal-News papers).

Dayton Daily News

Trusted since 1898
Front page on March 3, 2019
Type	Dailynewspaper
Format	Broadsheet
Owner(s)	Cox Enterprises
Publisher	Suzanne Klopfenstein
Editor	Ashley Bethard
Founded	1898; 127 years ago (1898)
Headquarters	601 E. Third St. Dayton,Ohio 45402  United States
ISSN	0897-0920
OCLC number	232118157
Website	DaytonDailyNews.com

TheDayton Daily News has its headquarters in the Manhattan Building in downtown Dayton, 601 E. Third St. The newspaper's editorial and business offices were moved there in January, 2022. For more than 100 years the paper's editorial offices and printing presses were located in downtown Dayton. From 1999 to 2017, the paper was printed at the Print Technology Center near Interstate 75 in Franklin about 15 minutes to the south.^[1] In 2017, theDayton Daily News's parent company came to an agreement withGannett for the paper to be printed at Gannett's facility inIndianapolis. This resulted in the closure of the Franklin facility.

Ohio Newspapers also publishes two other daily newspapers and websites in Southwest Ohio:Journal-News (formerlyThe Middletown Journal andHamilton JournalNews) and theSpringfield News-Sun.^[2] Cox First Media also publishes weekly papersToday's Pulse andOxford Press, and had published several other weekly papers until CMG Ohio ceased their operations in January 2013, includingThe Western Star (Ohio), formerly the oldest weekly paper published in the state, thePulse-Journal (Mason-Deerfield Township and West Chester-Liberty Township editions) and theFairfield Echo.^[3]

In late 2010, Cox Enterprises merged all of its local media holdings under the CMG Ohio brand and consolidated locations to The Media Center. In early 2020, theprivate equity firmApollo Global Management purchased Cox Enterprises' radio and TV properties and all Cox Media Group Ohio media entities. In March 2020, Cox Enterprises took back ownership of Ohio Newspapers, which included theDayton Daily News,Journal-News,Springfield News-Sun, Dayton.com, and related digital brands. As a group they operate under the brand Cox First Media.

On August 15, 1898,James M. Cox purchased theDayton Evening News. One week later, on August 22, 1898, he renamed it theDayton Daily News. In 2023, the Dayton Daily News celebrated 125 years in business.

The paper was founded with the intention of pioneering a new type of journalism, keeping weak ties to politicians and advertisers while seeking objectivity and public advocacy as primary functions. These goals pushed the paper in the direction of valuing the public interest.^[4]

A Sunday edition was launched on November 2, 1913. In 1948, Cox purchased two morning papers,The Journal andThe Herald, from the Herrick-Kumler Company. The next year he combined them to formThe Journal-Herald.^[5]

For the next four decades,The Journal-Herald was the conservative morning paper, and theDayton Daily News (which had a larger circulation) was the liberal evening paper. The papers operated newsrooms on separate floors of the samebuilding in downtown Dayton. On September 15, 1986,The Journal-Herald and theDaily News were merged to become a morning paper, theDayton Daily News and Journal-Herald, with both names appearing on the front page. TheJournal-Herald name last appeared on the paper's front-page flag on December 31, 1987.

Cox was theDemocratic Party's candidate forU.S. President in the election of 1920, and the city of Dayton has voted for the Democratic candidate in presidential elections ever since. Cox's running mate for vice president wasFranklin Delano Roosevelt, who was elected president in 1932.

The paper was led by Jeff Bruce as editor from 1998 to 2008. Bruce replaced Max Jennings, who retired. When Bruce retired in 2007 Kevin Riley, 44, a graduate of theUniversity of Dayton, was named editor. Riley spent most of his career with the paper, starting as a copy editor and later serving as sports editor, Internet general manager, and publisher of theSpringfield News-Sun inSpringfield, Ohio. He was promoted from deputy editor.

In 2010, Riley was named editor of theAtlanta Journal-Constitution and that paper's editor, Julia Wallace, under whose leadership the AJC won Pulitzer Prizes in 2006 and 2007, moved to Dayton to become Senior Vice President of news and programming for CMG Ohio heading a new combined newspaper, television and radio newsroom. She was soon after named the first female publisher and retired in 2016. In 2011, Jana Collier was promoted from managing editor to editor-in-chief of CMG Ohio and was responsible for content and operations for all daily and weekly papers. Collier is also the first woman to be editor-in-chief of the Dayton Cox newspaper organization. In March 2020, Jana Collier was named publisher of the newly formed Ohio Newspapers brand. Upon her retirement at the end of 2022, Suzanne Klopfenstein was named the new publisher and assumed her role in the beginning of 2023. Klopfenstein has 30 years of media experience, including serving as the senior director of sales for Cox First Media. Ashley Bethard became editor and chief content officer in January, 2022.

On March 5, 2023, the newspaper announced that, due to cost issues, starting on May 6, it would no longer produce printed newspapers on Saturdays. Digital products, including itsonline newspaper (branded as ePaper which is available online or in the company's app), would continue to be published on Saturdays .^[6]

In 1998, reportersRussell Carollo andJeff Nesmith won thePulitzer Prize for their reporting on dangerous flaws and mismanagement in the military health care system, a series very relevant to its readership because of the presence ofWright-Patterson Air Force Base in neighboringGreene County.

The paper is the home of cartoonistMike Peters, who draws theMother Goose and Grimm strip and won thePulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning in 1981, and columnist Dale Huffman, who had written a daily metro column every day for more than eight years before beginning a hiatus on January 30, 2008, after he was diagnosed withkidney cancer.

The following people at some point worked at or wrote for theDayton Daily News:

• Erma Bombeck (atThe Journal-Herald)
• Millie Bingham
• Si Burick
• Ritter Collett (atThe Journal-Herald)
• Charlotte Reeve Conover
• James M. Cox
• Bob Englehart (atThe Journal-Herald)
• Clem Hamilton
• Ann Heller
• Marj Heyduck (atThe Journal-Herald)
• Dale Huffman
• Hal McCoy
• Jeff Nesmith
• Mike Peters
• Tom Archdeacon
• John Scalzi
• Myron Scott
• Jon Talton
• Jim Zofkie
• Charley Stough III
• Dann Stupp
• Clara Weisenborn (atThe Journal-Herald)
• Roz Young (also atThe Journal-Herald)

In 1988,Daily News publisherDennis Shere was fired byCox Newspapers because he rejected a health lecture advertisement byhomosexual groups. Shere cited his "Christian perspective" in declining to print the ad. TheSouthern Baptist Convention subsequently passed a resolution calling on "allmedia to refuse advertising that promotes homosexuality or any other lifestyle that is destructive to the family". The resolution said Shere was fired for his "commitment to defend traditional moral andfamily values". The company responded that it was defendingfreedom of expression for all people, saying "We cannot compromise on the constitutional issue of equal access tothe press".^[7]

• Dayton Ink. Dayton, Ohio: The Dayton Daily News, 1998.
• Cayton, Andrew Robert Lee (2002),Ohio: the history of a people,Columbus, Ohio:Ohio State University Press,ISBN 978-0-8142-0899-1

• Official site
• Official mobile site