Bulldog edition refers to an early edition in the press cycle of a newspaper or other print publications.
For instance, the Sunday New York Times publishes its bulldog edition, about 100,000 copies, for distribution around the country, at about noon on Saturday. Other large metropolitan newspapers in the United States may offer a local Sunday bulldog edition for delivery to subscribers and available at newsstands and in racks on Friday or Saturday.
Although the origin of the term is unclear, the Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins suggests "the term dates back to New York City’s newspaper wars of the 1890s, when rival papers were competing for morning readers with special editions sold by street vendors very early in the day. These papers were baptized 'bulldogs' presumably because the publishers fought like bulldogs over circulation."
In the movie Citizen Kane, Kane tells Susan, “The bulldog's just gone to press,” to which Susan sarcastically replies, "Well, hurray for the bulldog!"
Famous quotes containing the word edition:
“I knew a gentleman who was so good a manager of his time that he would not even lose that small portion of it which the calls of nature obliged him to pass in the necessary-house, but gradually went through all the Latin poets in those moments. He bought, for example, a common edition of Horace, of which he tore off gradually a couple of pages, read them first, and then sent them down as a sacrifice to Cloacina: this was so much time fairly gained.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)