The Yale Daily News (YDN) is the oldest college newspaper in the United States. Published every weekday during the academic year when Yale is in session, it is written by student editors and reporters and serves the Yale community. YDN has a long history of providing students with opportunities to learn journalism, writing, and public speaking skills. Many former YDN writers and editors have gone on to distinguished careers in journalism, politics, and other professions. YDN also provides students with the opportunity to become involved in the community through its extensive volunteer program.
The Daily News Historical Archive contains digitized versions of the printed newspapers published by the Yale Daily News. The archive includes over 140 years of YDN reporting, with the full text searchable by article, date, or section. The archive is open to the public and can be accessed by visiting this website. The archive has been developed by the Daily News and the Yale Library to provide a permanent digital record of the paper. The YDN has always been committed to the preservation of its archives and, as part of this project, it is digitizing its entire collection of past issues. The YDN archive is being made available for research and educational purposes.
In the 1920s, as in other popular dailies, the Daily News found abundant subject matter: political wrongdoing (such as the Teapot Dome scandal); social intrigue (the romance between Wallis Simpson and King Edward VIII that led to the latter’s abdication); and crime stories. It was an early user of the Associated Press wirephoto service, and it established a significant staff of photographers. The paper’s downtown Manhattan headquarters, formerly at 450 West 33rd Street, straddled the railroad tracks that entered Penn Station, and its correspondents were located at city and state government offices and within the New York police department.
By the turn of the 21st century, the newspaper’s circulation was diminished from its mid-20th-century peak, but it remained one of America’s best-selling papers. It fought a fierce circulation battle with its rival tabloid, the New York Post, and frequently changed its editorial stance, sometimes moving left in line with Democratic party ideology and at other times shifting right to compete with the Post’s conservative populism.
In 2017, the Daily News was sold to Tronc, a Chicago-based media company. Since that time, the paper has been undergoing major restructuring and cost-cutting. In May 2019, the newspaper announced it would cease printing on its current day-of-the-week schedule and publish its weekly editions on Monday through Friday, instead. The new schedule is expected to begin on June 10. The News will continue to publish a special issue for the Commencement ceremony and various other specialized publications, including a special Yale-Harvard game day issue and the First Year Issue. These special editions will continue to be distributed in partnership with Yale’s cultural centers and affiliated student groups. The YDN has begun publishing an online version of the paper, News-2-You, which features both weekly News and Breaking News articles.