USA TODAY’s colorful format is deceptive. Wrapped in its vivid packaging are incisive, exclusive
news stories, written by experts, reviewed by experts and acclaimed by peers. The Columbia
Journalism Review writes, “Compared to the Times, USA TODAY had better reporting, better news judgment and made better use of the Web.” ¹ In 2007, writers at USA TODAY were awarded prizes from the American Association of University Professors, the Association of Women in Sports Media and the American Medical Writers Association, to name a few.
Access to top leaders
USA TODAY can deliver to your classroom the thoughts and ideas of top business, political and religious leaders. Del Jones who writes Advice from the Top says, “Perhaps the best evidence that ‘Advice from the Top’ is well received by decision makers is the number of CEOs who want to be a part of it. I get several unsolicited pitches a month from Fortune 1000 CEOs. I now have more than 500 CEOs who have voluntarily given me their direct email addresses so that they may have the opportunity to be quoted in my stories.”
Consistent, regular features
Because USA TODAY is a highly-formatted newspaper, teachers can depend on regular features within their field. For example, a political science or social studies teacher will always find valuable, relevant political news in Nationline and on the daily Washington, World, Nation and Forum pages. An economics or business teacher can depend on news germane to her field in Monday’s “Market Trends,” Tuesday’s “Your Money” and Friday’s “Managing Your Money” and
“Investing.” And through USA TODAY itself, a communications instructor can introduce his students to what Jon Fine of BusinessWeek calls, “the most interesting and coherent approach to
rethinking journalism and news-gathering.”²
¹ The Review’s full comments: “USA TODAY beat the Times on a follow-up to a story for which the Times just won a Pulitzer, while the Times’ Web site is telling its readers that those Christians unhappy with The DaVinci Code is the most important story of the day. USA TODAY readers find out about tax cuts; Times readers find out about women’s shorts that cost as much as the average American family earns in a week.USA TODAY has more hard news on its home page than the Times, and an equal amount of international news. And it gives readers links to check out the documents stories are based on. In short, compared to the Times, USA TODAY had better reporting, better news judgment and made better use of the Web.” May 11, 2006.
² 26 February 2007
