The Making of McPaper: The Inside Story of How USA Today Made It - Softcover

Peter S. Prichard

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1596702869 ISBN 13: 9781596702868

Publisher: Spotlight Press, 2007

Synopsis

This updated edition of Peter Prichard's acclaimed 1987 work that discusses the battle to build a newspaper includes an Afterword by longtime "USA Today" writer and editor David Colton, thus completing the story of the first 25 years of The Nation's Newspaper.

About this title

About the Author

Peter S. Prichard is the former top editor of USA TODAY. During his more than six years as editor, from 1988 through 1994, USA TODAY passed the two-million mark in circulation to become the nation's largest daily, while winning several national journalism awards. In his more than 25 years as a journalist, Prichard was a sportswriter, a police and court reporter, an assistant city editor, a television producer, a TV columnist, a feature writer, an editorial writer, a political editor and a deputy editorial page editor. In 1995 he joined the Freedom Forum to lead the team of news and museum professionals that built the $50-million Newseum and Freedom Park project in Arlington, Virginia.

David Colton has been with USA TODAY since 1983. He oversaw coverage of politics at the paper for a dozen years, attending 11 political conventions and biting his nails with the rest of the journalistic community on Election Night 2000, where the paper went through seven different front pages before declaring no one had yet won the presidency. Colton has filled the Deputy Managing Editor in News, Deputy Executive Editor, and Page One Editor positions at USA TODAY.

From Publishers Weekly

Newsweek once derisively referred to USA Today as "McPaper, the Big Mac of Journalism." But subsequent developments indicate that Americans have taken to this first national, general-interest daily newspaper virtually everywhere except New York and Washington and that its circulation is now among the three largest in the country. In this history, Prichard, a USA Today staffer, covers the planning sessions for the Gannett-chain paper, evidently based largely on corporate president Allen Neuharth's successful launch of a paper in the Cape Kennedy area; the role of Neuharth in driving the project to reality; the problems of circulation and distribution; the staggering difficulty of luring advertisers; and the huge deficits the paper racked up in its early years. A company history, the tone of the writing is rather fevered, and it is clear that this is not the work of an entirely objective reporter. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Spotlight Press
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 1596702869
• ISBN 13: 9781596702868
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 317