USA Today
The paper's dynamic design influenced the style of local, regional, and national newspapers worldwide through its use of concise reports, colorized images, informational graphics, and inclusion of popular culture stories, among other distinct features.[9] USA Today was first conceived on February 29, 1980, when a company task force known as "Project NN" met with the then-chairman of Gannett, Al Neuharth, in Cocoa Beach, Florida.At launch, Neuharth was appointed president and publisher of the newspaper, adding those responsibilities to his existing position as Gannett's chief executive officer.USA Today began publishing on September 14, 1982, initially in the Baltimore and Washington, D.C. metropolitan areas,[13][14] for a newsstand price of 25¢ (equivalent to 79¢ in 2023).The paper's overall style and elevated use of graphics—developed by Neuharth, in collaboration with staff graphics designers George Rorick, Sam Ward, Suzy Parker, John Sherlock and Web Brya—were derided by critics, who referred to it as a "McPaper" or "television you can wrap fish in", because it opted to incorporate concise nuggets of information more akin to the style of television news, rather than in-depth stories like traditional newspapers, which many in the newspaper industry considered to be a dumbing down of content.The sports section of USA Today, with its complete set of results, was well-regarded and generally seen as one of the main selling points of the paper.[11] By the fourth quarter of 1985, USA Today had become the second-largest newspaper in the United States, reaching a daily circulation of 1.4 million copies.On September 1, 1991, USA Today launched a fourth print site for its international edition in London for the United Kingdom and the British Isles.On February 8, 2000, Gannett launched USA Today Live, a broadcast and Internet initiative designed to provide coverage from the newspaper to broadcast television stations nationwide for use in their local newscasts and their websites; the venture also provided integration with the USA Today website, which transitioned from a text-based format to feature audio and video clips of news content.It also announced that the paper would shift its focus away from print and place more emphasis on its digital platforms (including USAToday.com and its related mobile applications) and launch of a new publication called USA Today Sports.[citation needed] On January 24, 2011, to reverse a revenue slide, the paper introduced a tweaked format that modified the appearance of its front section pages, which included a larger logo at the top of each page; coloring tweaks to section front pages; a new sans-serif font, called Prelo, for certain headlines of main stories (replacing the Gulliver typeface that had been implemented for story headers in April 2000); an updated "Newsline" feature featuring larger, "newsier" headline entry points; and the increasing and decreasing of mastheads and white space to present a cleaner style.[24][25] Following the relaunch, the editorial team behind USA Today Investigations ramped up its "longread" article plans, following the success of the series Ghost Factories.Gannet Digital designed, developed, and released the longread mobile experience to coincide with the launch of Brad Heath's series Locked Up, which won the Investigative Reporters and Editors Tom Renner Award in October 2013.Gannett later announced on December 11, that it would formally launch the condensed daily edition of USA Today in 31 additional local newspapers nationwide through April 2014 (with the Palm Springs, California-based The Desert Sun and the Lafayette, Louisiana-based Advertiser being the first newspapers outside of the pilot program participants to add the supplement on December 15), citing "positive feedback" to the feature from readers and advertisers of the initial four papers.The Courier Journal had earlier soft-launched the service as part of a pilot program started on November 17, coinciding with an imaging rebrand for the Louisville, Kentucky-based newspaper; Gannett's other local newspaper properties, as well as those it acquired through its merger with the Journal Media Group, gradually began identifying themselves as part of the USA Today Network (foregoing use of the Gannett name outside of requisite ownership references) through early January 2016.Therefore, the entire back page of the News section is used for weather maps of the continental United States, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, as well as temperature lists for many cities throughout the U.S. and the world.The colorized forecast map was created by staff designer George Rorick (who left USA Today for a similar position at The Detroit News in 1986) and was copied by newspapers around the world, breaking from the traditional style of monochrome contouring or simplistic text to denote temperature ranges.The paper also publishes the Mediabase survey for several genres of music based on radio airplay on Tuesdays, along with their own chart of the top ten singles in general on Wednesdays.The newspaper also features an occasional magazine supplement called Open Air, which launched on March 7, 2008, and appears several times a year.It also called out then-President Barack Obama and other top members of the Democratic Party for what it perceived as "inaction" during 2013–14, particularly over the NSA scandal and the ISIL beheading incidents.The editorial board broke from its "non-endorsement" policy for the first time on September 29, 2016, when it published an op-ed piece condemning the candidacy of Republican nominee Donald Trump, calling him "unfit for the presidency" due to his inflammatory campaign rhetoric (particularly that aimed at the press, with certain media organizations being openly targeted and even banned from campaign rallies, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN and the BBC, military veterans who had been prisoners of war, including 2008 Republican presidential candidate and Vietnam War veteran John McCain, immigrants, and various ethnic and religious groups); his temperament and lack of financial transparency; his "checkered" business record; his use of false and hyperbolic statements; the inconsistency of his viewpoints and issues with his vision on domestic and foreign policy; and, based on comments he had made during his campaign and criticisms by both Democrats and Republicans on these views, the potential risks to national security and constitutional ethics under a Trump administration, asking voters to "resist the siren song of a dangerous demagogue".[64] The board wrote that the piece was not a "qualified endorsement" of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, for whom it was unable to reach a consensus (some editorial board members expressed that Clinton's public service record would help her "serve the nation ably as its president", while others had "serious reservations about [her] sense of entitlement, [...] lack of candor and... extreme carelessness in handling classified information"), suggesting instead tactical voting against Trump and GOP seats in swing states, advising voters to decide whether to vote for either Clinton, Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson, Green Party nominee Jill Stein or a write-in candidate for president; or to focus on Senate, House and other down-ballot political races.[65][66][67] In February 2018, USA Today published an op-ed by Jerome Corsi, the DC bureau chief for the fringe conspiracy website InfoWars.[72] In 2024 after the presidential election, opinion fellow for USA Today Dace Potas published: Trump is president again and Democrats can blame Biden's ego.In 1987, Gannett and producer/former NBC CEO Grant Tinker began developing a news magazine series for broadcast syndication that attempted to bring the breezy style of USA Today to television.[89] Correspondents on the program included Edie Magnus, Robin Young, Boyd Matson, Kenneth Walker, Dale Harimoto, Ann Abernathy, Bill Macatee and Beth Ruyak.[92] It was then picked up by WNBC; after airing in the equally weak 5:30 a.m. slot, the series was moved to the more clear-eyed 9:30 a.m., but fared no better[93] (in contrast, CITY-DT in Toronto ran it at 5:00 p.m.).[94] Other stations quickly canceled or downgraded the program's airings as it became clear that it was a dud; the original executive producer was fired and the show retooled with Magnus and Macatee as anchors and a new on-air look and sound.Some articles for the latter are contributed by Good Luck Have Fun (GLHF), which describes itself as a gaming content agency that provides publishers around the globe, such as USA Today and Sports Illustrated,[104] with text and video.
USA Today (disambiguation)Daily newspaperBroadsheetGannettAl NeuharthNew York, NYCirculationNewsquestMedia of the United StatesList of newspapersall capsmiddle-market newspapernews broadcastinginformational graphicspopular culturefifth-largestprint circulationstatesWashington, D.C.Puerto RicoCanadaEuropePacific IslandsCocoa Beach, FloridaOakland, CaliforniaOakland Tribunechief executive officerBaltimorespot colorMcPapertelevision newsdumbing downSingapore1985 Major League Baseball seasonSwitzerlandSuper Bowl XXIILabor DayHong Kong1988 Summer OlympicsUnited KingdomBritish IslesMoscowFrankfurt, GermanyAuto-PlayCharleroi, BelgiumSeptember 11 attacksArlington, VirginiaMcLeanJack Kelleymobile applicationssans-serifmastheadsWolff Olinscontent management systemresponsive designGannett DigitalmobiletouchscreenInvestigative Reporters and Editorssearch enginesThe Indianapolis StarRochester Democrat & ChronicleFort MyersThe News-PressAppleton, WisconsinThe Post-CrescentPalm Springs, CaliforniaThe Desert SunLafayette, LouisianaAlliance for Audited MediaReviewedmobile appCourier JournalLouisville, KentuckyJournal Media GrouppaywallTexas Heartbeat ActRussian invasionlistingsfilm reviewsGulf WarAtlanta1996 Summer Olympicsbusiness travelOlympicsPGA TourNCAA basketball tournamentsMemorial DayIndianapolis 500Coca-Cola 600Super Bowlblurbscontinental United StatesU.S. Virgin IslandsthunderstormsThe Detroit Newsair quality indexesAccuWeatherThe Weather ChannelSuper Bowl SundayNew York Stock ExchangeNASDAQAmerican Stock Exchangemutual indexesA.C. Nielsen television ratingsMediabaseprime timelate nightEastern TimeLocal newsLocal programmingThe CWaffiliatedsyndicated programscomic stripsAssociated PressDistrict of ColumbiaU.S. territoryall participating state lotterieslead storynewsstandneo-Victorianadvertorials1984 United States presidential electionPresident of the United StatesSandy Hook Elementary School shooting