Meet Newsday

 

"Our first, second and final object is to present the news. That is why 'Newsday' is our slogan, as well as our name." -- Alicia Patterson, Newsday founder

Newsday began as a one-part paper, founded in Hempstead, Long Island, in 1940 by Alicia Patterson, daughter of Joseph Medill Patterson, founder, editor and publisher of the New York Daily News. Since then, Newsday has expanded to become a comprehensive media group, with an extensive range of print and online products, including Newsday the exclusive newspaper choice for more than 700,000 Long Islanders. With 19 Pulitzer Prizes, Newsday's history of honest, hard-hitting journalism has become a deeply rooted, Long Island tradition. Today, our vision is to connect Long Islanders to one another, their communities and their passions.

A brief history

After her death in 1963, Alicia Patterson's husband, Harry Guggenheim, took over as Newsday's publisher. In 1970, he sold the paper to Times Mirror Corporation, owner of the Los Angeles Times and other newspapers. In 2000, Times Mirror merged with Tribune Co., owner of the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Cubs baseball team, and WGN-TV and radio and other newspaper and broadcasting properties. In December 2007, Tribune Co. was taken private by Chicago real estate entrepreneur Sam Zell. In 2008, Cablevision Corp. entered into a joint venture with Tribune Co. to acquire Newsday, returning Newsday to Long Island ownership.

Newsday Media Group, today

Newsday Media Group encompasses a full spectrum of media products - giving readers the information they need, when they need it, where they need it and how they need it while offering advertisers a versatile range of opportunities to accurately target their audience and generate demand for their products and services.

Newsday, the company

Newsday employs more than 1800 people in 11 locations throughout Nassau, Suffolk and Queens Counties with editorial presence in Mineola, Riverhead, Hauppauge, New York City, Albany and Washington, D.C. Its headquarters are at 235 Pinelawn Road, Melville, where the daily newspaper and the online website are simultaneously produced and published. Newsday's departments consist of:

  • Newsroom, where the reporters, editors, artists, photographers, videographers and librarians work on Newsday's print and online content
  • Opinion, which reports directly to the publisher and is completely separate from the newsroom. It determines Newsday's editorial policy, and is responsible for the Opinion pages
  • Interactive, which manages newsday.com and associated Web sites
  • Circulation, responsible for acquiring and servicing Newsday subscribers and marketing to consumers. It also oversees the entire newspaper distribution process, including the home delivery depots that supply the neighborhood paper carriers, and delivery to all the locations that sell single copies of Newsday
  • Advertising Sales, which works with advertisers to help them reach their target audiences using Newsday Media Group's portfolio of products and services
  • Operations, which combines the content and the advertising into pages to be printed, assembled, collated with advertising inserts and special sections, stacked and delivered to our transportation bays for delivery to homes and businesses. The operations team prints both Newsday and amNew York
  • Information Technology, which is responsible for Newsday's Editorial, Advertising, Circulation, Operations and other applications, the supporting technology infrastructure and operations, compliance, business continuity, and strategic systems planning
  • Engineering Services, which takes care of the buildings and facilities at the Newsday campus as well as other regional properties
  • Public Affairs, which manages Newsday's community outreach programs, operates Newsday Charities and FutureCorps, the student public service project, and handles Newsday Media Group's public relations and media relations activities
  • Strategy & Development, which oversees our strategic initiatives and utilizes various forms of research and information to find opportunities to grow via new products, enhanced products, and operational efficiencies
  • Finance, Human Resources and Employee Communications support all of these areas
The following is a brief description of each of our products.

Newsday

After nearly seven decades, Newsday remains Long Island's newspaper of choice. With over one million daily readers, 1.2 million on Sunday, Newsday has a weekly penetration rate of 71% on Long Island (source: Scarborough, 2007 (Release 2), ranking number one in NDM daily circulation penetration among top metropolitan newspapers. (Source: ABC Fas-Fax, 3/31/08) Newsday is printed 7 days a week, 364 days a year and is fully integrated with the Web.

  • Monday through Friday, readers enjoy award-winning news and sports coverage in addition to Explore LI, colorful, fast-paced, locally-focused, features section designed to help Long Islanders decide how best to spend their valuable time and money.
  • On Monday, LI Business covers the people and companies making news on Long Island and in New York City.
  • Thursday features food-oriented content and all the grocery store advertising inserts.
  • On Friday, Your LI Home highlights home décor, special houses and home features, and includes the real estate listings.
  • Friday's Wheels features automotive content and cars and automotive products and services for sale.
  • Saturday's paper features extensive news, sports coverage and the Act Two section for seniors.
  • Sunday is everything rolled into one, with cost-saving circulars, LI Life, LI Kids, Fan Fare, Travel and more.
Newsday is supported by in-paper advertising that includes classified and display ads, circulars and coupons.

Newsday.com

Newsday.com is the region's largest and most comprehensive newspaper Web site, featuring:
  • More affluent (household income of $75K+) visitors in the NY designated marketing area than any other local newspaper site in the region Source: Scarborough 2007 Release 2
  • 59.8 million monthly page views Source: Omniture, Jan-June 2008 monthly average
  • 3.3 million unique visitors Source: Nielsen NetRatings Jan-June 2008 monthly average

Newsday.com offers readers quality, up-to-the minute news coverage while providing unique advertising opportunities to merchants, including: rich media, pre/post roll video, QuickStream, sliding billboards, interstitials, Triple Cube creative, flash ads and banner ads. Newsday.com is a host site for some of the top Web brands that deliver consumers to the automotive, real estate and employment products and information they're looking for, including:

  • Optimum Autos: automotive dealers
  • Careerbuilder.com: career development network and job exchange community
  • Homefinder.com: comprehensive real estate listings
  • Apartments.com: National search engine and resource for apartment seekers/renters

Newsday.com is fully integrated with its print counterpart, Newsday, offering multiple platforms for connecting consumers to local content, local commerce and local communities, including:

  • ExploreLI.com: The region's most extensive site for entertainment and things to do, updated with over 500 new events each week. Other special features:
    -- Weekly videos highlighting local events and virtual tours of local attractions
    -- Searchable database of over 1,000 Newsday dining reviews
    -- Channel-specific interactive content for golf, dining, beaches, kids/parenting and weddings
    -- Outdoors, wineries and top destinations, including: The Hamptons, Fire Island, Jones Beach, Montauk and the Nautical Mile
  • N-Zone / High School Sports: Professional, engaging, interactive coverage of Long Island high school sports that attracts hard-to-reach teens and their families. Promoted in Newsday, on newsday.com and in schools to generate heightened awareness throughout the school year
  • Long Island Community Guide: Web pages that compile unique and useful information about 175 LI communities, targeting both those who live there, and those who might wish to. Includes a searchable database of over 15,000 listings and community-specific video to drive local content
  • Health and Wellness: Long Island's Top Doctors, featuring expanded coverage, helps guide consumers in choosing doctors for themselves and their families. The section also includes:
    -- Searchable database consisting of over 250 of the "top doctors" in Nassau and Suffolk Counties, from the respected Castle Connolly database
    -- Database, organized by specialty, is accompanied by health-related articles and videos
  • Travel: Gives consumers valuable information about how best to spend their vacation time and money, locally and abroad.

amNew York

  • amNew York: amNew York is a free newspaper distributed Monday through Friday primarily in Manhattan and surrounding geographies, targeted to young working professionals. Coming up on its fifth anniversary, amNew York targets a segment of New Yorkers looking for a quick read about their city during their commute.
  • amny.com: Adjacent to the printed product, amny.com includes additional features of various blogs, news and information. Amny.com has roughly 2.4 million page views per month. Source: Omniture, Jan-June 2008 monthly average

Star Community Publishing

Star Community Publishing is the Northeast's largest publisher of shopper publications, with 181 localized editions distributed across Long Island, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island to over 2.6 million homes and businesses weekly. Star Community Publishing operates out of the Alicia Patterson building at 25 Deshon Road, Melville, across the street from Newsday. Products include:

  • Shopper's Guide, Yankee Trader, Huntington Pennysaver: 82 editions 100% mailed on Tuesday/Wednesday to every home and business on Long Island
  • This Week/This Week's Pennysaver: 64 editions delivered as a section in Sunday Newsday to subscribers and on Saturday to non-subscribers
  • Newsday's Marketeer: 35 editions hand delivered every Wednesday – Friday in Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island
  • What's Happening: Glossy cover, 4-color magazine delivered to Newsday Friday home subscribers on Long Island in six targeted zones, ten times a year. Borough delivery is with Newsday's Marketeer in 2 targeted zones, 4 times a year

A few things you may not know about Newsday

  • Newsday.com is updated about 300 times per day.
  • In June 2008, newsday.com set another new monthly page view record with over 68.3M page views, up over a million from May. Nassau's DWI "Wall of Shame", the Belmont Stakes, Hangin' in the Hamptons and the story about the snake in the mattress were big draws. So was the spat between Mike and Mad Dog.
  • The most popular blog on newsday.com is the one by political cartoonist Walt Handelsman.
  • Newsday drivers start between midnight and 2:00 a.m. to deliver the papers by 3 a.m. to our 9 home delivery depots, where nearly 800 carriers pick up product and collectively drive over 25,000 miles to deliver it to over 300,000 homes by 5:30 A.M.
  • Late deliveries are our worst enemy. If we're late, subscribers leave for work without the paper, and single copy buyers may pick up a competitor's paper with their coffee and bagel. That is why we have made our home delivery service among the top in the industry, with 50% fewer complaints than the average daily major metro newspaper.
  • We also deliver the NY Post, amNY, Wall Street Journal, and Investor's Business Daily.
  • Over 1 billion advertising inserts are processed through the packaging department annually.
  • The paper we use to print the newspaper comes on huge rolls that weigh approximately 2,200 lbs. Each roll produces about 428,000 pages. On an average weekday, we produce that day's 64-page "main" section (the front page section with the news) and the next day's Explore LI section. So to produce the paper you read each day required at least 107 rolls of newsprint.
  • It takes about 20 minutes of the press printing at top speed to consume the entire roll.
  • On average, each press produces 48,000 papers per hour with the webs of paper traveling at a speed of 25 feet per second. It takes five presses running for three hours to print the day's main section, beginning at 12:15 A.M. and ending at 3:15 A.M. The day's Explore LI section is printed the day before.
  • If the web of paper breaks, the press automatically stops printing. It takes 15 to 22 seconds for the press to come to a full stop. The web of the paper has to be rethreaded through the printing units and can be as long as 87 feet at its longest length.
  • Every day when the paper is made up, the editorial content is laid out and then the ads are filled into the available spaces, like a puzzle. With some exceptions, advertisers can't be guaranteed a specific spot on a specific page on a specific day.
  • It pays to be a subscriber the free, 75,000-member Newsday Insider subscriber loyalty program offers subscribers multiple contest offerings each month, product discounts and other perks. Newsday employees can't enter the contests, but they can take advantage of discounts.
  • Using the paper and newsday.com, Newsday Charities conducts two huge annual fundraisers that invite readers, employees and businesses to support children and families in need. Every dollar raised receives a 50 cent match from the McCormick Foundation. The donations and match are distributed to local non-profits serving our communities -- nearly $6 million since 2000.
  • Newsday will begin the 10th year of an island-wide community service program called FutureCorps in 2008, which has engaged more than 650,000 students grades k-college in vital community service projects that have made Long Island stronger.


Copyright © 2009, Newsday Inc.