Newspaper publisher Tronc has acquired the Daily News, a storied New York tabloid newspaper that won a Pulitzer Prize this year but has been buffeted by the changing media environment.

Chicago-based Tronc Inc., the publisher of the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune, announced the deal, and the Daily News posted a story on its website. It was first reported by The New York Times. Tronc CEO Justin Dearborn said acquiring the paper and its popular website would "provide us with another strategic platform for growing our digital business, expanding our reach and broadening our services for advertisers and marketers," and both Tronc and Daily News executives said the company would maintain the quality of the paper's journalism.

The deal puts the Daily News under the umbrella of one of the nation's major newspaper chains, with properties spanning from the Hartford Courant in Connecticut to the Sun-Sentinel in South Florida. Tronc - which evolved from Daily News founder the Tribune Co. - gets a presence in the New York media market, a news site with about 25 million unique monthly visitors and other assets.