USA TODAY
“If USA Today (1982– ) is a good paper,” grumbled Washington Post executive editor Ben Bradlee, “then I’m in the
wrong business.”
“Bradlee and I finally agree on something,” quipped
USA Today’s founder Al Neuharth. “He is in the wrong
business.”
Many in the mainstream media charged the paper’s
large charts, pie graphs and downsized stories amounted to
“junk-food journalism.” A Newsweek headline in January
1983 labeled USA Today “The Big Mac of Newspapers.”
Jonathan Yardley, a Washington Post columnist, claimed
“McPaper” gave “readers only what they want. No spinach. No bran. No liver.” CBS News veteran Charles Kuralt,
however, did not agree with “the heavy hitters of big-time
journalism” who sneered at USA Today. The paper was “a
reliable way for many to find out what’s going on in the
world” and that “is not only good for journalism; it’s good
for the country,” he said.
USA Today began life on September 15, 1982, at the
foot of Capitol Hill when President Ronald Reagan, Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker, and Speaker of the
House of Representatives Thomas “Tip” O’Neill stood
beside Gannett Publishing president Allen H. Neuharth to
receive their complimentary copies of the paper’s first press
run. All 155,000 copies of that first edition were sold in
the Washington-Baltimore corridor that day. Twenty-five
years later, the nation’s most-widely read newspaper had
a circulation of 2.3 million. It would be years, however,
before the paper turned a profit. Early opponents observed
the country already had a national newspaper, some mentioning the Wall Street Journal while others added the New
York Times, but the flamboyant Neuharth, who had helped
build Gannett into the country’s largest newspaper chain,
was convinced the company could deliver a general-interest
daily that would appeal to nationwide readers.
“The Nation’s Newspaper” began life in Rosslyn, Virginia, a Washington, D.C., suburb, with two-thirds of its 218
reporters, average age thirty-three, on loan from Gannett’s
other eighty-eight papers, under a leadership team of Neuharth, Editor John J. Curley, Executive Editor Ron Martin,
and Chief News Executive John C. Quinn. For staffers,
these were the “Gang of Four.” A staff guide told reporters
and editors, “our readers are upscale, well informed and
looking for a supplement to their regular newspaper. So
our stories may contain less background on events, more
emphasis on what’s new.” Quinn’s view was that “exploding media have increased hunger for news/info, but none
has met market needs for news/info-in-a-hurry that is more portable than TV news.” Quinn wanted the paper’s focus
to be on the future. He urged reporters and editors “to look
ahead, to look at solutions.” Curley thought the chances
were only “40/60” that the paper would succeed. USA
Today would be based on a “space age” newspaper design
Neuharth had successfully launched in Cape Canaveral,
Florida. The management team was a constant and terrorizing presence in the newsroom. The pressure was intense.
“I was terrified,” said Money section managing editor J.
Taylor Buckley. “We feared the feedback from the chiefs.
Always negative.” Sheryl Bills, Life section managing editor, was equally anxious. “It’s hard to believe we could
endure mentally, physically.” A characteristic note of caustic criticism from Neuharth to Curley and Quinn in December 1982 read, “Do I have to do everything myself? Page
one is a disaster. Dull stories. Dumb editing. No stories that
help the reader. No good pix of women or minorities—just
the usual white males. The blue sky came out purple. At
this rate USA Today will never see the New Year.”
The paper’s four sections—news, money, sports, and
life—became a heavily illustrated “mix,” according to
managing editor Peter Prichard, of “hard news and features
of wide interest” that “had to say, ‘read me.’” That meant
de-emphasizing foreign news, the assassination of Lebanese leader Bashir Gemayel was buried on an inside page of
the paper’s first edition, while summarizing the news of all
fifty states in an “Across the USA Roundup.” USA Today’s
full-page of national weather included a color map that
became the most imitated part of the paper. As circulation
expanded westward, the map was tilted to take the focus
off the East Coast. The newspaper was marketed through
vending machines that looked like television sets and was
heavily marketed to the business traveler through giveaways on airlines and at airports and hotels. The paper was
sent via satellite to regional distribution hubs, allowing it to
push back deadlines and capture the latest news and sports
scores. The paper does not print on Saturday and Sunday.
Its starting price of 25 increased to 35 cents in August 1984,
50 cents in August 1985 and 75 cents in September 2004.
For its first few years, USA Today struggled to survive.
Losses ran in the millions. Neuharth had planned the paper
as a “second read,” designed to complement a local newspaper. Joe Welty, the paper’s vice president for advertising,
had a hard time finding buyers. Madison Avenue wanted
to know, “What niche does USA Today have? Where is the
hook? Why do we need to be in this newspaper?” Gannett’s
business plan estimated the paper might sustain losses of
$40 to $50 million in its first year of operation. Fourteen
million of it was to assure full color production quality
printed on deadline. Neuharth suggested the “losses” were
“investments” in the company’s future. Critics were condescending and unremitting. USA Today was “a multimillion
dollar attempt to create a national newspaper,” the Associated Press reported, “on rented presses.” The New Republic reported, “Gannett is known for expert marketing and
mediocre journalism and its latest endeavor is the product
of both.” Ben Bagdikian sized it up in the Columbia Journalism Review as “a serious blow to American journalism”
with “no serious sense of priorities.”
Circulation was approaching one million when USA
Today debuted in Chicago on March 9, 1983. Its lead story
quoted “a source” saying police had “in sight” a suspect in
the killing of seven Chicago area residents who had been
killed after taking Tylenol capsules laced with cyanide.
No one was ever charged in the case, and Neuharth barred
“sources said” from appearing in the paper. As circulation
spread to Atlanta, Detroit, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Boston, Cleveland, Houston, Denver, Seattle, Los Angeles,
Cincinnati, Nashville, Phoenix, New Orleans, Dallas/Ft.
Worth, and San Francisco problems persisted. The paper’s
business office was understaffed and poorly trained. Home
delivery plans were a shambles. The paper’s Minneapolis
office processed subscription orders on three by five index
cards. It would be April 1983 before the paper was able to
launch in New York City. As late as July 1984 it was losing
$10 million a month. The tide turned by the start of 1985,
when USA Today was able to reach 80 percent of the U.S.
population. Six months later, the paper’s research showed
two-thirds of its readers had attended college and nearly
half were making more than $35,000 annually, better demographics than competing magazines. Circulation stood at
1.3 million. This helped boost paid advertising to twelve
and a half pages and within a year translated to a threequarters gain in ad revenue. By April 1987, circulation had
climbed to 1.75 million. On May 6, 1986, an International
Edition of USA Today began appearing in Switzerland. A
July 1986 survey showed the paper’s daily readership averaged 4,792,000. As the 1980s ended, the paper was beginning to show a profit and gain respect. Initial misgivings by
minorities and religious groups had faded. It had surpassed
the New York Daily News in circulation and would soon
breeze by the Wall Street Journal for the number one spot.
In the 1990s, critics continued to carp, “USA Today
doesn’t rub off on your hands or mind.” Some of the criticism was justified. In March 2004, the paper admitted that
veteran reporter Jack Kelley had fabricated eight major stories during his ten years at USA Today. Those who decried
the rise of “corporate newspapering” and the “Wal-marting
of America” made the ninety-nine-newspaper Gannett Publishing empire and USA Today a poster child of what was
wrong with America’s $60 billion newspaper industry.
But the Kelley episode was not typical of the paper.
Neuharth argued that the paper “informs, entertains, and
debates. But it doesn’t dictate. We don’t force unwanted
objects down unwilling throats.” The paper’s political and
public opinion polling received wide distribution. Neuharth, who turned the daily operation of the paper over to
Curley, began writing columns highly critical of America’s
pre-emptive war in Iraq, characterizing George W. Bush
as “an unwise commander in chief” with an obligation “to
bring our troops home sooner rather than later.” During this
period it became a strong advocate of campaign finance
reform and limiting the role of lobbyists. On May 11,
2006, a major page-one story claimed the National Security Agency had been “secretly collecting the phone call
records of tens of millions of Americans” in the aftermath
of terrorist attacks on the nation. The charges would lead to
a Congressional investigation and court suits.
Since 2001, USA Today has been headquartered in a
thirty-acre complex in McLean, Virginia. Once reviled, it
had become widely imitated by mainstream newspapers
needing to modernize in the age of the Internet. The paper
won grudging admiration from previous critics by luring
top flight talent to strengthen its writing and reporting.
Those who saw USA Today as an innovator on the eve of
the digital age praised its adaptation to new market forces.
Further Reading
“Allen Harold Neuharth.” In Charles Moritz, ed., Current Biography 1986, New York: H.W. Wilson, 1987, 409–413.
Neuharth, Al. Confessions of an S.O.B. New York: Doubleday,
1989.
Prichard, Peter S. The Making of McPaper: The Inside Story
of USA Today. Kansas City: Andrews, McMeel & Parker,
1987.
Roberts, Gene, ed. Leaving Readers Behind: The Age of Corporate Newspapering, Fayetteville: University of Arkansas
Press, 2001.
Ritzer, George. The McDonaldization of Society: An Investigation into the Changing Character of Contemporary Social
Life. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge, 1996.
Bruce J. Evensen