Daily News Cover Compares Trump to Hitler

[Updated at noon with comment from editor]

Nothing subtle about this:

Wow. Check out the Philadelphia @PhillyDailyNews cover depicting the GOP front runner. pic.twitter.com/4V05L47wzO

— Michael Smerconish (@smerconish) December 8, 2015

It will be interesting to see the reaction today. What else is there to say? People were wondering if the tabloid paper could maintain its sassiness in the wake of deep-cutting layoffs and the move to combine newsrooms with the Inquirer. Consider this, perhaps, a declaration of intent.

“We’re never done being sassy,” said Mike Days, the Daily News‘ editor, late this morning. By noon, the cover had been featured in the Washington Post, at Talking Points Memo, and on Poynter, among other outlets.

“The phone’s not ringing off the hook, but it’s been retweeted a number of times,” Days said.

Days said that during Monday news meetings, the focus was heavily on Trump’s comments that Muslims should be banned from entering the United States.

“There was widespread agreement we needed to find a way to lead with it today,” Days said. “We were able to marry a really good photo to what I felt were the right words.”

And if the Daily News’ future has seemed somewhat in doubt of late, Days suggested that the cover — along with similar covers by the New York Daily News — shows the benefit of having multiple newspaper outlets in a market: That gives at least one the freedom to make provocative statements on the front page.

“We call it the way we see it,” Days said. “When we do it, we really mean it.”