Myth: USA Today is a crappy newspaper
It seems that whenever anyone wants to trash a newspaper, USA Today supplies the easy target. It’s colorful, it’s given away free at hotels, it specializes in short news. What’s not to hate?
Unfortunately, the facts just don’t support the criticism.
First off, a bit of honesty. USA Today is no New York Times nor a Wall Street Journal. But, what newspapers do compare with those venerable titles? The Times and the Journal sit in a category unto themselves. After all, they are the only two papers in the country that take an entire morning to read.
That said, USA Today rests squarely in the 2nd-tier category — as do other papers with national prestige such as the Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune and the L.A. Times. But, when searching for a large newspaper to trash, nobody launches undefended criticisms at those three papers.
In essence, the four newspapers compare equally. They cover international news well — all have numerous foriegn correspondents. They cover Washington politics well — all have well-staffed Washington bureaus. And they all cover the nation well.
USA Today, in fact, does the latter much better than the others. Why? Because USA Today is owned by Gannett, which in turn owns a kaboodle of daily newspapers. (Including the Jackson Clarion-Ledger in Mississippi where this author once worked as a copy editor on the news desk. But if you worked for Gannett, you usually don’t go around defending them, so please don’t read any bias into that fact.) These local dailies give Gannett great access into many U.S. cities, a benefit USA Today uses wisely.
USA Today holds several other qualities above the other papers.
As someone who has lived in North Carolina, Mississippi, Massachusetts and Georgia, I enjoy reading the news roundup from those states. I’m sure others get a kick out of reading local news from their former haunts as well. When I pick up a Washington Post, I receive no such joy.
USA Today provides easy-to-digest graphic information. Sometimes certain data (e.g., the ratio of catfish to alligators in Louisiana) proves interesting but doesn’t merit a whole story. USA Today’s infographics provide the information, quickly and in entertaining fashion. Some sneer at this “dumbing down” of information; I’m just happy they took the time to provide the data in a fun manner.
USA Today has one of the best sports sections in the country. I dare you to find more raw sports information in any other daily newspaper. (The Atlanta-Journal Constitution’s sports pages are the best I’ve read in the country, but they appeal more to the Southern sports fan.)
USA Today provides an incredibly wide swath of news. Yes, the articles may not be long (though the cover stories on each section front each devote more than 60″ of copy per day), but they derive from a variety of locales and cover a host of subjects. Most articles are relatively short, but if you need more information you can go to the New York Times or Wall Street Journal. USA Today’s articles are no shorter than any other 2nd-tier newspaper.
The bottom line? The L.A. Times, Chicago Tribune and Washington Post don’t exceed USA Today in coverage regarding the latest violence in Haiti, the pending action of the Federal Reserve or the devastation of hurricanes in Florida. Yet, when we’re searching for a whipping boy, my beloved USA Today always seems to suffice.
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I think the L.A. Times is a 1st-tier paper, but I agree that USA Today is under-rated.
USA Today also doesn’t get the credit it deserves for changing the industry.
I have only a few criticism of Gannett’s mothership. I’d like to see it publish seven days a week. I’d also like to see it break important stories more often. They sometimes seem content to let others do the legwork and then re-report it with a slightly different spin. (Very cost-effective, though. Gannett’s bottom line is the fattest in the industry.)
None of that, however, should overshadow all the good things they’ve done and still do.
They should get credit for reshaping the way the industry thinks in the same way CNN forced TV news to change even though Ted Turner’s baby was initially mocked as the Chicken Noodle Network.
USA Today’s state-by-state roundups are great as is the brevity of their writing. Sometimes less really is more. Papers such as my own Houston Chronicle think every story must be at least 20 inches or it’s under-done even though most readers only read a few paragraphs of most stories before they rush to work.
USA Today also led papers around the country (even the old gray lady, the New York Times) to use more color, and they recreated and repackaged a product that was in need of a makeover.
And let us not forget what USA Today was for the sports fan before the Internet took over.
Every Tuesday and Wednesday it published a full page of complete baseball stats. In the ’80s and early ’90s, that info was usually only found in the Sporting News and by the time you got the numbers they were old. I used to wait in the cold after midnight to get a USA Today as soon as they were delivered. It also offered the most complete basketball and football stats, and it pioneered the expanded box scores that now appear in every decent newspaper around the country. It doesn’t matter as much now that you can get instant, sortable stats on dozens of Web sites, but at the time the concept was groundbreaking and brilliant.
Gannett was also smart enough to put the paper’s name in ALL CAPS so it would pop out of copy. What a great marketing ploy. It didn’t last though. Even Gannett’s own papers, such as the Honolulu Advertiser, stopped using all caps for TODAY.
But even in that, they were ahead of the pack and trying to rethink they way they industry operated and the purpose it served.
Another Myth: Newspapers are a dying thing.
Where USA Today made it possible to get a little bit of important news on a lot of different topics, newspaper in general will always provide a lot of commentary on some very important items forever. Perhaps a generation of people will take with them that need to actually touch the inky broadsheet (or tabloid), but I truly believe that there will always be people who want to grab that coffee, grab that fav newspaper, get outside, breath the air and read – not browse – news and commentary.
By the way…I hope you and your family are doing great these days Matt.
I dunno. Every time I walk into the Chroonicle it smells like death to me. We won’t be alive to see them take their last breath, but the industry is on life support.