Palo Alto Daily News
Encyclopedia
The Daily News, originally the Palo Alto Daily News, is a free daily newspaper
owned by MediaNews Group
and located in Menlo Park
. It was formerly published seven days a week and at one point had a circulation of 67,000 (a figure that included five zoned editions which no longer exist). The Daily News is distributed in red newspaper racks and in stores, coffee shops, restaurants, schools and major workplaces. As of April 7, 2009 the paper ceased to be published as The Palo Alto Daily News and was consolidated with other San Francisco Peninsula Daily News titles. They publish five days a week, Tuesday through Saturday. Weekday editions are delivered to selected homes.
On May 5, 2009, the paper went to a smaller page size (11-1/4 by 11-3/8 inches) to save money. "The change also brands our newspaper as different than the local competition, and makes it easier for our on-the-go readers to carry around," an announcement to readers said. They now have a larger version than their original one, with different sections, like add-ins or inserts.
The newspaper prints a combination of local stories and news from a number of wire services including The Associated Press, Bay City News
, The New York Times
and McClatchy-Tribune (the former Knight-Ridder Tribune). Local columnists include John Angell Grant, Larry Magid
and John Reid. Syndicated opinion columns include those by Bob Herbert
, Thomas Friedman
and Maureen Dowd
.
The newspaper's press run is determined by consumer demand; by 1997, the circulation had nearly tripled to 10,000 copies a day.
On August 9, 2000, the newspaper expanded into San Mateo County by opening three dailies, the San Mateo Daily News
, Redwood City Daily News
and Burlingame Daily News
. These became the first free daily newspaper
s in San Mateo County, although within two years, other free dailies started in that area, replicating the format of the Daily News.
On May 15, 2002, the Daily News launched the Los Gatos Daily News
. In addition to Los Gatos, it served Saratoga
, Campbell
, Cupertino
and western San Jose
.
In the first quarter of 2003, the combined circulation of the Daily News reached 55,000 per day, and on March 23 a home-delivered Sunday edition was added.
On November 12, 2004, the Daily News beat the competition by putting out an "extra" minutes after a jury in Redwood City convicted Scott Peterson
of murdering his wife Laci and their unborn son. Editors put the "Redwood City Daily News" flag at the top of the Extra because the trial was taking place in that city, but it was distributed in all of the communities served by the Daily News, including Palo Alto.
On February 15, 2005, Knight Ridder
, then the nation's second-largest newspaper publisher, bought the Palo Alto Daily News and its four sister papers for $25 million. Price and Pavelich, the publishers, were asked to stay on during the transition, but they left by the end of the year.
In May 2005, the Daily News launched the East Bay Daily News
, which served Berkeley
, Emeryville
, Piedmont
, Albany
and the Oakland
neighborhood of Rockridge
.
In January 2006, Shareef Dajani, formerly general manager of the Knight Ridder-owned Hills Newspapers, a group of weeklies in Alameda County, was named publisher. In March, Dajani fired editor Diana Diamond
, a long-time Palo Altan who was also a columnist. Her dismissal triggered numerous letters-to-the-editor and the competing Palo Alto Weekly picked up her column. Dajani replaced Diamond with Lucinda Ryan, who had worked with him at the Hills Newspapers.
In March 2006, Knight Ridder agreed to be purchased by The McClatchy Company
, owner of the Sacramento Bee among other papers. McClatchy later announced it would sell 12 of the 32 Knight Ridder dailies, including the San Jose Mercury News
and two other regional papers, The Monterey County Herald
and the Contra Costa Times
. The Palo Alto Daily News, along with other papers, was included in the Mercury News' 'bundle,' to be sold as one entity. MediaNews Group
, which already owned several area papers, agreed to acquire the Mercury News, Contra Costa Times, Monterey County Herald and the St. Paul Pioneer Press
of Minnesota for $1 billion, with $263 million of that coming from the Hearst Corporation
, owner of the San Francisco Chronicle
. The two deals — the sale of Knight Ridder to McClatchy, and McClatchy's sale to MediaNews — closed in August 2006. However, a lawsuit filed by San Francisco real estate developer Clint Reilly challenged the sale on anti-trust grounds. The suit was settled with Hearst and MediaNews agreeing not to work together on national advertising or distribution.
In January 2007, Dajani was replaced by Carole Leigh Hutton, former editor and publisher of the Detroit Free Press
when it was owned by Knight Ridder. When Knight Ridder sold the Free Press to Gannett on August 3, 2005, Hutton was named Knight Ridder's vice president of news, a position she held until the company folded in 2006.
In March 2007, former Oakland Tribune editor Mario Dianda replaced Lucinda Ryan as executive editor.
In May 2008, Daily News founders Dave Price and Jim Pavelich announced that they were reviving the original paper, in its original headquarters at 324 High St., under the name Palo Alto Daily Post
.
In June 2008, the Daily News laid off five newsroom workers and eliminated its Monday edition in Palo Alto and its Tuesday edition in San Mateo, Redwood City and Burlingame. Those three cities had lost their Monday edition two years earlier.
In August 2008, it came to light that the Daily News had hired a company in India to manage writing, copy-editing and design of a weekly real-estate product.
In April 2009, the Daily News dropped its Sunday edition and editions for San Mateo, Burlingame and Redwood City.
Free daily newspaper
Free daily newspapers are distributed free of charge, either in central places in cities and towns, or with other newspapers. The revenues of such newspapers are based on advertising.-In the U.S.:...
owned by MediaNews Group
MediaNews Group
MediaNews Group, based in Denver, Colorado, is one of the largest newspaper companies in the United States. It is privately owned and operates 56 daily newspapers in 12 states, with combined daily and Sunday circulation of approximately 2.4 million and 2.7 million, respectively...
and located in Menlo Park
Menlo Park, California
Menlo Park, California is a city at the eastern edge of San Mateo County, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, in the United States. It is bordered by San Francisco Bay on the north and east; East Palo Alto, Palo Alto, and Stanford to the south; Atherton, North Fair Oaks, and Redwood City...
. It was formerly published seven days a week and at one point had a circulation of 67,000 (a figure that included five zoned editions which no longer exist). The Daily News is distributed in red newspaper racks and in stores, coffee shops, restaurants, schools and major workplaces. As of April 7, 2009 the paper ceased to be published as The Palo Alto Daily News and was consolidated with other San Francisco Peninsula Daily News titles. They publish five days a week, Tuesday through Saturday. Weekday editions are delivered to selected homes.
Format and content
Originally, the Daily News had a distinctive format with pages that were 16 inches long and 10.75 inches wide, dimensions which were thought to make the Daily News easier to hold than traditional broadsheet papers, but allow more stories to be published per page than a typical tabloid.On May 5, 2009, the paper went to a smaller page size (11-1/4 by 11-3/8 inches) to save money. "The change also brands our newspaper as different than the local competition, and makes it easier for our on-the-go readers to carry around," an announcement to readers said. They now have a larger version than their original one, with different sections, like add-ins or inserts.
The newspaper prints a combination of local stories and news from a number of wire services including The Associated Press, Bay City News
Bay City News
Bay City News is a wire service based in the San Francisco Bay Area that focuses on general interest news. Established in 1979, it employs over 20 full time reporters. The service feeds 100 newsrooms via a satellite, dedicated phone line, and Internet network....
, The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
and McClatchy-Tribune (the former Knight-Ridder Tribune). Local columnists include John Angell Grant, Larry Magid
Larry Magid
Larry Magid , also known as Lawrence J. Magid, is an American journalist, technology columnist and commentator. He was born in Brooklyn, New York and raised in Los Angeles. He received his BA from the University of California, Berkeley and a doctorate of education from the University of...
and John Reid. Syndicated opinion columns include those by Bob Herbert
Bob Herbert
Robert “Bob” Herbert is an American journalist op-ed columnist who wrote for The New York Times. His column was syndicated to other newspapers around the country. Herbert frequently writes on poverty, the Iraq war, racism and American political apathy towards race issues...
, Thomas Friedman
Thomas Friedman
Thomas Lauren Friedman is an American journalist, columnist and author. He writes a twice-weekly column for The New York Times. He has written extensively on foreign affairs including global trade, the Middle East, and environmental issues and has won the Pulitzer Prize three times.-Personal...
and Maureen Dowd
Maureen Dowd
Maureen Bridgid Dowd is a Washington D.C.-based columnist for The New York Times and best-selling author. During the 1970s and the early 1980s, she worked for Time magazine and the Washington Star, where she covered news as well as sports and wrote feature articles...
.
History
The Palo Alto Daily News debuted on December 7, 1995 with an initial circulation of 3,000. Within nine months, the paper was in the black. The paper generates all of its revenue from advertising. The original publishers, Jim Pavelich and Dave Price, understood that the advertising would reach more potential customers if the paper were free and thus widely available.The newspaper's press run is determined by consumer demand; by 1997, the circulation had nearly tripled to 10,000 copies a day.
On August 9, 2000, the newspaper expanded into San Mateo County by opening three dailies, the San Mateo Daily News
San Mateo Daily News
The San Mateo Daily News was a free daily newspaper in San Mateo, California published 6 days a week with an average daily circulation of 22,000. The newspaper was founded August 9, 2000 by Dave Price and Jim Pavelich, who also published the Palo Alto Daily News...
, Redwood City Daily News
Redwood City Daily News
The Redwood City Daily News was a free daily newspaper in Redwood City, California published 6 days a week with an average daily circulation of 8,000. The newspaper was founded August 9, 2000 by Dave Price and Jim Pavelich, who also published the Palo Alto Daily News...
and Burlingame Daily News
Burlingame Daily News
The Burlingame Daily News was a free daily newspaper in Burlingame, California published six days a week with an average daily circulation of 7,000. The newspaper was founded August 9, 2000 by Dave Price and Jim Pavelich, who also published the Palo Alto Daily News...
. These became the first free daily newspaper
Free daily newspaper
Free daily newspapers are distributed free of charge, either in central places in cities and towns, or with other newspapers. The revenues of such newspapers are based on advertising.-In the U.S.:...
s in San Mateo County, although within two years, other free dailies started in that area, replicating the format of the Daily News.
On May 15, 2002, the Daily News launched the Los Gatos Daily News
Los Gatos Daily News
The Los Gatos Daily News, now called the Los Gatos News was a free newspaper in Los Gatos, California published 3 days a week. The newspaper was founded May 15, 2002 by Dave Price and Jim Pavelich, who also published the Palo Alto Daily News. Both papers were distributed in newspaper racks and in...
. In addition to Los Gatos, it served Saratoga
Saratoga, California
Saratoga is a city in Santa Clara County, California, USA. It is located on the west side of the Santa Clara Valley, directly west of San Jose, in the San Francisco Bay area. The population was 29,926 at the 2010 census....
, Campbell
Campbell, California
Campbell is a city in Santa Clara County, California, a suburb of San Jose, and part of Silicon Valley, in the San Francisco Bay Area. As of the 2010 U.S. Census, Campbell's population is 39,349...
, Cupertino
Cupertino, California
Cupertino is an affluent suburban city in Santa Clara County, California in the U.S., directly west of San Jose on the western edge of the Santa Clara Valley with portions extending into the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains. The population was 58,302 at the time of the 2010 census. Forbes...
and western San Jose
San Jose, California
San Jose is the third-largest city in California, the tenth-largest in the U.S., and the county seat of Santa Clara County which is located at the southern end of San Francisco Bay...
.
In the first quarter of 2003, the combined circulation of the Daily News reached 55,000 per day, and on March 23 a home-delivered Sunday edition was added.
Scott Peterson
Scott Lee Peterson , an American, was convicted of murdering his wife, Laci Peterson, and their unborn child in Modesto, California, in 2002. Peterson's arrest and subsequent trial dominated the American news media until 2005, when he was sentenced to death by lethal injection...
of murdering his wife Laci and their unborn son. Editors put the "Redwood City Daily News" flag at the top of the Extra because the trial was taking place in that city, but it was distributed in all of the communities served by the Daily News, including Palo Alto.
Knight Ridder
Knight Ridder was an American media company, specializing in newspaper and Internet publishing. Until it was bought by The McClatchy Company on June 27, 2006, it was the second-largest newspaper publisher in the United States, with 32 daily newspapers sold.- History :The corporate ancestors of...
, then the nation's second-largest newspaper publisher, bought the Palo Alto Daily News and its four sister papers for $25 million. Price and Pavelich, the publishers, were asked to stay on during the transition, but they left by the end of the year.
In May 2005, the Daily News launched the East Bay Daily News
East Bay Daily News
The East Bay Daily News was a free daily newspaper in Berkeley, California published 5 days a week with an average daily circulation of 10,000. The newspaper was founded May 20, 2005 by journalist Dave Price and Jim Pavelich, who also published the Palo Alto Daily News...
, which served Berkeley
Berkeley, California
Berkeley is a city on the east shore of the San Francisco Bay in Northern California, United States. Its neighbors to the south are the cities of Oakland and Emeryville. To the north is the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington...
, Emeryville
Emeryville, California
Emeryville is a small city located in Alameda County, California, in the United States. It is located in a corridor between the cities of Berkeley and Oakland, extending to the shore of San Francisco Bay. Its proximity to San Francisco, the Bay Bridge, the University of California, Berkeley, and...
, Piedmont
Piedmont, California
Piedmont is a small, affluent city in Alameda County, California, United States. It is surrounded by the city of Oakland. The population was 10,667 at the 2010 census. Piedmont was incorporated in 1907 and was developed significantly in the 1920s and 1930s...
, Albany
Albany, California
Albany is a city in Alameda County, California, United States. The population was 18,539 at the 2010 census.-History:In 1908, a group of local women protested the dumping of Berkeley garbage in their community...
and the Oakland
Oakland, California
Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...
neighborhood of Rockridge
Rockridge, Oakland, California
Rockridge is a residential neighborhood and commercial district in Oakland, California. Rockridge is generally defined as the area east of Telegraph Avenue, south of the Berkeley city limits, west of the Oakland hills and north of the intersection of Pleasant Valley Avenue/51st Street and...
.
In January 2006, Shareef Dajani, formerly general manager of the Knight Ridder-owned Hills Newspapers, a group of weeklies in Alameda County, was named publisher. In March, Dajani fired editor Diana Diamond
Diana Diamond
Diana Diamond is an American journalist who has edited a number of newspapers including the Palo Alto Daily News, and was a columnist at the Palo Alto Weekly. At the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal, she was editor of their magazine, Valley Life Quarterly, and a columnist and editorial...
, a long-time Palo Altan who was also a columnist. Her dismissal triggered numerous letters-to-the-editor and the competing Palo Alto Weekly picked up her column. Dajani replaced Diamond with Lucinda Ryan, who had worked with him at the Hills Newspapers.
In March 2006, Knight Ridder agreed to be purchased by The McClatchy Company
The McClatchy Company
The McClatchy Company is a publicly traded American publishing company based in Sacramento, California. It operates 30 daily newspapers in 15 states and has an average weekday circulation of 2.2 million and Sunday circulation of 2.8 million...
, owner of the Sacramento Bee among other papers. McClatchy later announced it would sell 12 of the 32 Knight Ridder dailies, including the San Jose Mercury News
San Jose Mercury News
The San Jose Mercury News is a daily newspaper in San Jose, California. On its web site, however, it calls itself Silicon Valley Mercury News. The paper is owned by MediaNews Group...
and two other regional papers, The Monterey County Herald
The Monterey County Herald
The Monterey County Herald, sometimes referred to as the Monterey Herald, is the major daily newspaper published in Monterey, California, and serving Monterey County. The paper is owned by MediaNews Group...
and the Contra Costa Times
Contra Costa Times
The Contra Costa Times is a daily newspaper based in Walnut Creek, California, U.S.. The paper serves Contra Costa and eastern Alameda counties, in the eastern part of the San Francisco Bay Area...
. The Palo Alto Daily News, along with other papers, was included in the Mercury News' 'bundle,' to be sold as one entity. MediaNews Group
MediaNews Group
MediaNews Group, based in Denver, Colorado, is one of the largest newspaper companies in the United States. It is privately owned and operates 56 daily newspapers in 12 states, with combined daily and Sunday circulation of approximately 2.4 million and 2.7 million, respectively...
, which already owned several area papers, agreed to acquire the Mercury News, Contra Costa Times, Monterey County Herald and the St. Paul Pioneer Press
St. Paul Pioneer Press
The St. Paul Pioneer Press is a newspaper based in St. Paul, Minnesota, primarily serving the Twin Cities metropolitan area. Circulation is heaviest in the eastern metro region, including Ramsey, Dakota, and Washington counties, along with western Wisconsin, eastern Minnesota and Anoka County,...
of Minnesota for $1 billion, with $263 million of that coming from the Hearst Corporation
Hearst Corporation
The Hearst Corporation is an American media conglomerate based in the Hearst Tower, Manhattan in New York City, New York, United States. Founded by William Randolph Hearst as an owner of newspapers, the company's holdings now include a wide variety of media...
, owner of the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
. The two deals — the sale of Knight Ridder to McClatchy, and McClatchy's sale to MediaNews — closed in August 2006. However, a lawsuit filed by San Francisco real estate developer Clint Reilly challenged the sale on anti-trust grounds. The suit was settled with Hearst and MediaNews agreeing not to work together on national advertising or distribution.
In January 2007, Dajani was replaced by Carole Leigh Hutton, former editor and publisher of the Detroit Free Press
Detroit Free Press
The Detroit Free Press is the largest daily newspaper in Detroit, Michigan, USA. The Sunday edition is entitled the Sunday Free Press. It is sometimes informally referred to as the "Freep"...
when it was owned by Knight Ridder. When Knight Ridder sold the Free Press to Gannett on August 3, 2005, Hutton was named Knight Ridder's vice president of news, a position she held until the company folded in 2006.
In March 2007, former Oakland Tribune editor Mario Dianda replaced Lucinda Ryan as executive editor.
In May 2008, Daily News founders Dave Price and Jim Pavelich announced that they were reviving the original paper, in its original headquarters at 324 High St., under the name Palo Alto Daily Post
Palo Alto Daily Post
The Daily Post is a revival of the original Palo Alto Daily News, founded in 2008 by the Daily News’ founders Dave Price and Jim Pavelich. The Post is published Monday-Saturday and distributed in more than a dozen communities on the San Francisco peninsula...
.
In June 2008, the Daily News laid off five newsroom workers and eliminated its Monday edition in Palo Alto and its Tuesday edition in San Mateo, Redwood City and Burlingame. Those three cities had lost their Monday edition two years earlier.
In August 2008, it came to light that the Daily News had hired a company in India to manage writing, copy-editing and design of a weekly real-estate product.
In April 2009, the Daily News dropped its Sunday edition and editions for San Mateo, Burlingame and Redwood City.
External links
- Palo Alto Daily News Official Website
- The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer visits the Palo Alto Daily News for a story entitled Giving it Away by Terence Smith
- Knight Ridder buys Daily News
- Daily News publishers ride into sunset
- Daily News turns 10, bloopers recalled
- Knight Ridder Launches New Free Daily Newspaper in East Bay