[custom_adv] Photos by: Farhad Babaei at USA Today (+link to source), USA Today is an internationally distributed American daily, middle-market newspaper that serves as the flagship publication of its owner, the Gannett Company. The newspaper has a generally centrist audience. [custom_adv] Founded by Al Neuharth on September 15, 1982, it operates from Gannett's corporate headquarters on Jones Branch Drive, in McLean, Virginia. [custom_adv] It is printed at 37 sites across the United States and at five additional sites internationally. Its 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. [custom_adv] With a weekly circulation of 1,021,638 and an approximate daily reach of seven million readers as of 2016, USA Today shares the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States with The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. [custom_adv] USA Today is distributed in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico, and an international edition is distributed in Asia, Canada, Europe, and the Pacific Islands. [custom_adv] The genesis of USA Today was on February 29, 1980, when a company task force known as "Project NN" met with Gannett Company chairman Al Neuharth in Cocoa Beach, Florida to develop a national newspaper. Early regional prototypes included East Bay Today, an Oakland, California-based publication published in the late 1970s to serve as the morning edition of the Oakland Tribune, an afternoon newspaper which Gannett owned at the time. [custom_adv] On June 11, 1981, Gannett printed the first prototypes of the proposed publication. The two proposed design layouts were mailed to newsmakers and prominent leaders in journalism, for review and feedback. [custom_adv] The Gannett Company's board of directors approved the launch of the national newspaper, titled USA Today, on December 5, 1981. At launch, Neuharth was appointed president and publisher of the newspaper, adding those responsibilities to his existing position as Gannett's chief executive officer. [custom_adv] Gannett announced the launch of the paper on April 20, 1982. USA Today began publishing on September 15, 1982, initially in the Baltimore and Washington, D.C. metropolitan areas for an newsstand price of 25¢ (equivalent to 63¢ today). [custom_adv] After selling out the first issue, Gannett gradually expanded the national distribution of the paper, reaching an estimated circulation of 362,879 copies by the end of 1982, double the amount of sales that Gannett projected. [custom_adv] The design uniquely incorporated color graphics and photographs. Initially, only its front news section pages were rendered in four-color, while the remaining pages were printed in a spot color format. [custom_adv] 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 Bryant – was derided by critics, who referred to it as "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 the news. [custom_adv] Although USA Today had been profitable for just ten years as of 1997, it changed the appearance and feel of newspapers around the world. [custom_adv] On July 2, 1984, the newspaper switched from predominantly black-and-white to full color photography and graphics in all four sections. The next week on July 10, USA Today launched an international edition intended for U.S. readers abroad, followed four months later on October 8 with the rollout of the first transmission via satellite of its international version to Singapore. [custom_adv] On April 8, 1985, the paper published its first special bonus section, a 12-page section called "Baseball '85," which previewed the 1985 Major League Baseball season. [custom_adv] 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. [custom_adv] USA Today is an internationally distributed American daily, middle-market newspaper that serves as the flagship publication of its owner, the Gannett Company. The newspaper has a generally centrist audience. [custom_adv] Founded by Al Neuharth on September 15, 1982, it operates from Gannett's corporate headquarters on Jones Branch Drive, in McLean, Virginia. [custom_adv] It is printed at 37 sites across the United States and at five additional sites internationally. Its 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. [custom_adv] With a weekly circulation of 1,021,638 and an approximate daily reach of seven million readers as of 2016, USA Today shares the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States with The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. [custom_adv] USA Today is distributed in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico, and an international edition is distributed in Asia, Canada, Europe, and the Pacific Islands. [custom_adv] The genesis of USA Today was on February 29, 1980, when a company task force known as "Project NN" met with Gannett Company chairman Al Neuharth in Cocoa Beach, Florida to develop a national newspaper. [custom_adv] Early regional prototypes included East Bay Today, an Oakland, California-based publication published in the late 1970s to serve as the morning edition of the Oakland Tribune, an afternoon newspaper which Gannett owned at the time. [custom_adv] On June 11, 1981, Gannett printed the first prototypes of the proposed publication. The two proposed design layouts were mailed to newsmakers and prominent leaders in journalism, for review and feedback.
