USA Today rewrites strategy to cope with Internet

USA Today designed its coin-operated dispensers to resemble TV screens, but today’s flatscreen TVs don’t have rounded corners anymore. The content is getting a refresh, though.

That breezy approach has reinforced perceptions that USA Today lacks the intellectual heft and sway of the Times and another national newspaper, The Wall Street Journal. Both those newspapers are also trying to expand their audiences and sell more advertising on digital devices.

“USA Today doesn’t stand for authority in a lot of areas,” Doctor says. “It stands for familiarity.”

Even USA Today’s mass appeal is waning as Internet search engines and other tools on digital devices enable people to parse the news to find just the stories that suit their tastes. Those selections then are frequently passed on to people’s own relatively small circles of family, friends and fans on Facebook and Twitter – two online communication channels that have emerged as cultural phenomena in the past three years.

“USA Today was designed as every man’s newspaper, but every man has been moving on to other things,” Atorino says. —Bismarck Tribune Online – World and National News.

Post was last modified on 23 Mar 2011 8:34 pm

Share
Published by
Dennis G. Jerz

Recent Posts

Representing the Humanities at Accepted Students Day.

Representing the Humanities at Accepted Students Day.

2 days ago

The daughter opens another show. This weekend only.

The daughter opens another show. This weekend only.

2 days ago

How to Disagree Academically: Using Graham’s “Disagreement Hierarchy” to organize a college term paper.

How to Disagree Academically: Using Graham's "Disagreement Hierarchy" to organize a college term paper.

2 days ago

A.I. ‘Completes’ Keith Haring’s Intentionally Unfinished Painting

After learning of his AIDS diagnosis, artist Keith Haring created the work, "Unfinished Painting" (1989),…

3 days ago

Seton Hill students Emily Vohs, Elizabeth Burns, Jake Carnahan-Curcio and Carolyn Jerz in a scene from “Dead Man’s Cell Phone.”

Seton Hill students Emily Vohs, Elizabeth Burns, Jake Carnahan-Curcio and Carolyn Jerz in a scene…

3 days ago

“The Cowherd Who Became a Poet,” by James Baldwin. (Read by Dennis Jerz)

Inspiration can come to those with the humblest heart. Caedmon the Cowherd believed he had…

3 days ago