Fred Drasner, a Feisty Leader of The Daily News, Is Dead at 83
A former New York cabdriver who never lost his edge, he was co-publisher alongside Mort Zuckerman as he took on rival papers in the so-called tabloid wars.
Fred Drasner, who as the stickball-playing, cab-driving, alligator-hunting consigliere to the real estate and publishing tycoon Mortimer Zuckerman ran The Daily News in New York in the 1990s, during the city’s fabled tabloid wars, died on Saturday at his home in Wellington, Fla. He was 83.
His wife, Lora Drasner, said the cause was heart failure.
Born in Brooklyn and raised in Queens, Mr. Drasner never lost his New York accent, or his verve for verbal combat.
Related Knowledge Center: Inside the newsroom
As newsrooms struggle with rickety business models and precarious finances — as well as new technologies — they are deploying an array of editorial responses.
The Times and its critics | Washington Post mortem