No newsroom is bad ‘News’

The Daily News is about to become a newspaper without a newsroom.

Tribune Publishing, which has owned the 101-year-old tabloid since 2017, confirmed on Wednesday that it will shutter the paper’s newsroom in downtown Manhattan permanently later this year and has no plans to return.

But the company insisted it will keep a print edition of the paper alive, noting that its reporters and editors have been working remotely since the pandemic started in March. They will be given until Oct. 30 to collect their belongings.

“Out of an abundance of caution we do not anticipate having employees that can work remotely coming back into the office for the remainder of the year and into 2021,” a Tribune spokesman said. “With no clear path forward in terms of returning to work, and as the company evaluates its real-estate needs in light of health and economic conditions brought about by the pandemic, we have made the difficult decision to permanently close the office.”

The spokesman added that “today’s announcement relates only to the closure of the physical office at 4 New York Plaza. We are not ending print editions.”

The company also said it is shuttering offices of its Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Md., the Carroll County Times in Maryland, and the Florida office that houses the Orlando Sentinel.

The Daily News’ once-famed newsroom was at 220 E. 42nd St., still known as the Daily News Building, even though it has not housed the paper since the late 1990s.

The building, especially its lobby and exterior, was used as a stand-in for the fictional Daily Planet in the first “Superman” movie starring Christopher Reeve in 1978.