PATTERSON, JOSEPH MEDILL

born Jan. 6, 1879, Chicago, Ill., U.S. died May 26, 1946, New York, N.Y. American journalist, coeditor and publisherwith his cousin Robert Rutherford McCormickof the Chicago Tribune from 1914 to 1925; he subsequently became better known as editor and publisher of the New York Daily News, the first successful tabloid newspaper in the United States. A Tribune staff member from 1901, Patterson was an Illinois state legislator (190304) and Chicago commissioner of public works (190506). During World War I he served as a war correspondent in 191415 and, after the United States entered the war in 1917, as a combat officer. With McCormick he founded the New York Daily News (first published June 26, 1919), which, because of its sensationalism, soon attained a circulation of nearly one million, the largest among American tabloids. Relinquishing to McCormick his authority over the Tribune, Patterson became sole editor and publisher of the Daily News in 1925. A mild socialist as a young man, he later became more conservative, as did the Daily News; the paper switched from support of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's policies to isolationist opposition.