U.S. News & World Report began weekly publication with
a somewhat different name and format in May 1933. Its
arrival and that of Newsweek a few months earlier presented
Time with two competitors after a decade of monopoly as a
weekly newsmagazine.
United States News derived from the United States Daily,
a national newspaper edited and published by David Lawrence since 1926. Seven years of financial losses persuaded
Lawrence and his investors, who had provided more than a
million dollars for the daily, to switch to a weekly schedule. However, United States News retained its newspaper
format until January 1940; upon transforming itself from a
broadsheet page size to a standard magazine page size, the
publication thereafter referred to itself as a newsmagazine.
Having spent some of his career with the Associated
Press and most of his time covering the White House and
Congress, Lawrence had enough experience by 1920 to
establish an independent news syndicate based in Washington, D.C. This provided him the requisite insider’s knowledge to produce informative articles on national politics
and policy, and supplied a substantial stream of revenue to
create ancillary news syndicates on commerce and financial information.
Lawrence decided to focus United States News on the
inner workings of government and government’s effects on
the private sector. One of the publication’s earliest regular
features was “Washington Whispers,” a compendium of
behind-the-scenes tidbits.
Lawrence, a journalist in his mid-forties whose reputation
had attracted wealthy investors, committed United States
News solely to national events and issues, while the other
newsmagazines included international news. Also unlike the
other newsmagazines, United States News based its operations in the nation’s capital, not New York City. During his
forty-year tenure as editor, Lawrence set a production deadline of Friday, one day ahead of the competition, to ensure
that his publication would arrive by mail first.
United States News did not thrive during the Depression era, but it survived. By the start of World War II, the
weekly had a circulation of about ninety thousand subscribers and newsstand readers, giving United States News
approximately one-fifth the circulation of Newsweek and
one-twelfth that of Time.
Lawrence then created a second newsmagazine for international news in 1946, World Report. This weekly relied on
a handful of correspondents to report dramatic news in the
postwar world, with particular attention paid to the threat
of Communism. Many loyal readers of United States News
also subscribed to World Report, an indication of Lawrence’s popular esteem.
United States News combined with World Report in
early 1948, a recognition by Lawrence that whatever rationale he once had for separate national and international
publications no longer was logical in the postwar world.
With a shortened title and ampersand, the new combination
of U.S. News & World Report quickly gained more readers, attaining paid circulation of a half-million copies by
the early 1950s.
U.S. News & World Report maintained a writing style
and format quite different from its competitors. Lawrence,
a former newspaper reporter, preferred to hire newspaper
editors and reporters. Their writing was more straightforward, less descriptive than the prose in either Time or
Newsweek. Correspondents tended to work alone on articles, rather than the group effort at the larger newsmagazines. Correspondents at U.S. News & World Report stayed
on their beats longer, and acquired expertise and a network
of sources that allowed them to compete effectively against
the much larger competitors.
Lawrence also favored shorter articles, and would present
two or three related stories on the same subject rather than a
single lengthy piece. However, the newsmagazine occasionally suffered from a seemingly disorganized approach to
the news by publishing related articles in different sections
of an edition rather than placing them together.
U.S. News & World Report emphasized text more than illustrations. The cover was strikingly different, usually
simply headlines for a few major articles and only rarely a
full-page photograph or illustration. The idea was to highlight a variety of topics.
The question-and-answer interview article also was
a distinctive feature of U.S. News & World Report. The
newsmagazine regularly presented three- to four-page
articles consisting of apparently verbatim responses by a
newsmaker to questions posed by a correspondent or editor.
Presidents, international leaders, and a variety of noteworthy individuals explained their decisions and policies without journalistic interpretation.
Lawrence and his editors rarely paid attention to popular
culture, arts, or entertainment either. U.S. News & World
Report devoted its pages to hard news about legislation,
politics, policy, social issues, and developments in commerce, finance, and industry. The newsmagazine ignored
celebrities, fashion, and other trendy items.
The no-nonsense editorial approach provided readers
with more articles on politics and policy than the other
newsmagazines. Correspondents supplied extensive coverage of federal regulatory agencies and tax laws. Much space
was allocated every week for coverage of highly specific
news of interest to businesses and affluent citizens. It was
a nuts-and-bolts type of journalism not seen in the other
newsmagazines.
Graphics on inside pages played a major role. Charts and
graphs displayed statistical information, monetary data,
and other numerical amounts to accompany text. The newsmagazine used photographs, but until the 1970s did not let
them dominate a page. Text mattered most.
In its viewpoint, and in Lawrence’s back-page opinion
columns, U.S. News & World Report favored business over
labor, state government authority rather than federal government power, and militant anti-Communism. During the
postwar decades of dramatic changes in the nation and world,
U.S. News & World Report often attributed such events to
the influence of Communists and their sympathizers.
The public liked the editorial identity. By the mid-1960s,
the newsmagazine distributed 1.4 million copies a week to
subscribers and newsstand buyers. Although still solidly in
third place, U.S. News & World Report had significantly
closed the gap to slightly less than half Time’s circulation
and one-third less than Newsweek’s.
The Vietnam War set U.S. News & World Report further apart from its competitors. The newsmagazine favored
comments from policymakers and politicians who wanted
to expand military operations into Laos and Cambodia, and
to confront China with military force for its support of the
Vietnamese Communists. Articles also relied on anonymous remarks from military commanders who criticized
the Johnson administration’s restraints on bombardment
of northern Vietnam. The newsmagazine was the first to
warn its readers that American military operations probably would not succeed. Congressional opponents of war
policy received scant coverage, except when vilified by congressional supporters of the war. And, for most of the war
U.S. News & World Report suggested that antiwar organizations were directed or influenced directly or indirectly by
Communists.
Its hard-line stand attracted a loyal readership of two
million subscribers and newsstand buyers by the mid-
1970s. U.S. News & World Report remained third among
the newsmagazines, maintaining approximately the same
proportion of circulation.
The Lawrence era ended with his death in February
1973. He had sold the magazine company to its employees
a decade earlier.
The 1970s and 1980s were years of transition for U.S.
News & World Report. Its cover design changed to emphasize the major article in each edition and it ran cover
blurbs—brief headlines—to refer to secondary articles.
Business news expanded, and the newsmagazine emphasized coverage of technology. It also published its first
annual ratings of colleges and universities in 1983, a feature
that has become a trademark.
Despite a new look and more varied editorial strategy,
U.S. News & World Report endured years of stagnant circulation, a condition that afflicted its competitors, too. In
1984, the newsmagazine’s employee owners sold the publication to Mortimer Zuckerman, a publisher and real estate
developer.
Several editors-in-chief came and went by the early
1990s, along with the replacement of most long-time correspondents and editors. Gradually, the newsmagazine
concentrated on single-topic editions rather than breaking
news and focused on service-oriented articles rather than
politics and policy. Circulation briefly increased to nearly
2.5 million copies by the late 1990s.
The transformation generated interest among advertisers. U.S. News & World Report gained advertising pages
through most of the 1990s while its competitors lost pages.
Long an early adapter of technology, U.S. News & World
Report converted to electronic production during the 1970s.
Its newsroom had video-display terminals, pagination, and
digital photography before the larger newsmagazines did.
U.S. News & World Report had an online site in 1995 when
the Web was in its infancy; the newsmagazine formed a
separate online staff several years later.
Although it has changed much during its lifetime, U.S.
News & World Report continued to have a distinct editorial
identity in the early twenty-first century.
Further Reading
Landers, James. The Weekly War : Newsmagazines and Vietnam.
Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2004.
Lawrence, David. U.S. News & World Report: A Two-Way System
of Communication. New York, Newcomen Society in North
America, 1969.
James Landers