How time flies. Was it really nearly 30 years ago that USA Today, the national daily iconoclast with ultra colorful graphics and concise stories for time-challenged travelers, debuted?
Well, now it’s embarking on a major makeover–featuring concessions to contemporary demographics and Internet reality. It’s designing content for smartphones and tablet computers. It will add even more color. And it will focus on travel tips, gadget reviews, lifestyle recommendations and financial advice.
It will also emphasize investigative journalism. That’s the one that takes me back.
As a reporter with the Tampa Bay Business Journal, I was given the opportunity in 1983 to take a week-long seminar for business writers at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business. It was heady stuff, and it enabled a staff writer from a 2-year-old weekly in Florida to mix with personnel from the wire services as well as the prestigious likes of the New York Times, Washington Post, Philadelphia Inquirer and Boston Globe.
We would all critique the course material and swap war stories over lunch. While TBBJ was hardly a household name, it did warrant interest and respect because it was on the cusp of the trend toward major-market, business-only newspapers.
One day at lunch, the hot topic was the recent awarding of Pulitzer Prizes. As usual, the NYT and the WP did not come away empty-handed. In fact, one of the Post writers was at our lunch table, and he was being good naturedly razzed about the Post’s resources and Pulitzer marketing efforts.
Also at the table was a business reporter for the nascent USA Today, which had taken the print world by storm when launched by Gannett Co. in the fall of 1982. It was becoming America’s commuter daily. It was brazenly colorful, user-friendly and a quick read.
You wanted in-depth, you read establishment dailies, not USA Today. Purists dubbed it the newspaper version of fast food. It was sometimes referred to as “McPaper” and its content “McNews.” Quick news bites for those on the run.
Anyway, some wise guy (and there never is a dearth of same wherever journalists are gathered) decided to include the USA Today reporter in the Pulitzer conversation. He got everyone’s attention when he noted that after less than a year in business, USA Today had earned–remarkably enough–a Pulitzer. Puzzled and bemused looks abounded. Had we missed this or was there a punch line coming? It was the latter.
“Yeah, USA Today won the Pulitzer for best investigative paragraph.” Everyone erupted in laughter, and even the USA Today guy, who sensed the right response, joined in.
But that was then. And this is not. Now investigative journalism will become a staple–and one of the ways the nation’s second-largest newspaper is revising its formula. It’s not USA Yesterday.