In the story of post-World War II American conservatism, it is easy to pick out the National Review as the journalistic parent of figures like Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush. But another influential media outlet, one that had a much wider audience than National Review, was the New York Daily News. Throughout the 1940s and 1960s, it espoused a conservative populism further right than National Review, binding its readers into a community based on anti-elitism and white working-class identity.
It also embraced a right-wing populism that was inherently isolationist. Unlike the intellectual and interventionist politics of National Review, the Daily News attacked bureaucrats, diplomats, taxes, regulation, and Communists (and their supposed fellow travelers). Its views on immigration were particularly harsh, blaming soft or effeminated elites for being overly generous to undeserving foreigners.
The paper also incorporated racial tensions and anxieties in its coverage, although not always explicitly. It argued that black residents of the city had brought crime and decay, and urged readers to support “White-Only” policies. But the economic anxiety of its readers was more important than racial concerns, and this influenced the newspaper’s politics more than race-based fears did.
The newspaper was the first tabloid in America and was sold to Tronc for $1 in 2017. It has a reputation of being biased but is generally considered a reliable source. Its editorial page has been called “the most powerful newspaper editorial voice in the nation.” It has a long list of alumni who have gone on to prominent careers in journalism and public life, including William F. Buckley, Lan Samantha Chang, John Hersey, Sargent Shriver, Garry Trudeau, and Calvin Trillin.