Los Angeles Daily News (historic)

Daily News

The cover of the Los Angeles Daily News on November 5, 1953, just under a year before the paper ceased publication.
Publisher	Manchester Boddy
Founded	1923
Political alignment	Democratic
Language	English
Ceased publication	1954

The Los Angeles Daily News (originally the Los Angeles Illustrated Daily News), often referred to simply as the Daily News, was a newspaper published from 1923 to 1954. It was operated through most of its existence by Manchester Boddy. The publication has no connection with the current newspaper of the same name.

The Daily News was founded in 1923 by the young Cornelius Vanderbilt IV as the first of several newspapers he wanted to manage. After quickly going bankrupt, it was sold to Boddy, a businessman with no newspaper experience. Boddy was able to make the newspaper succeed, and it remained profitable through the 1930s and 1940s, after it took a mainstream Democratic perspective. The newspaper began a steep decline in the late 1940s and early 1950s. In 1950, Boddy ran in both the Democratic and Republican primaries for the United States Senate. Boddy finished a distant second in both primaries, and lost interest in the newspaper. He sold his interest in the paper in 1952, and publication ceased in December 1954, when the business was sold to the Chandler family, who merged it with their publication, the Los Angeles Mirror.

The Los Angeles Illustrated Daily News was founded in 1923 by Cornelius Vanderbilt IV, who wished to start his own newspaper chain. The young Vanderbilt had served as a news reporter in New York for four years, but had no experience running a paper. Believing the best newspaper was a democratic one, he offered voting rights to those who would pay $5 for a year's subscription to his newspaper. Repudiating the legendary adage of William Henry Vanderbilt, "The public be damned," Vanderbilt announced that the paper's philosophy would be "The public be served." Vanderbilt ignored attempts by the newspaper moguls who dominated Los Angeles journalism, William Randolph Hearst and Harry Chandler, to warn him off. Denied advertising in other newspapers, Vanderbilt attempted to gain publicity for his paper by having trucks drive through the streets bearing the paper's banner, and hiring boys to chalk the paper's name on sidewalks, much to the annoyance of landowners who had to clean it up.