USA TODAY and the

Collegiate Readership Program

Overview
Reach

Reaching more than 3.7 million print readers daily, USA TODAY exceeds its national competitors in print
circulation, with The Wall Street Journal second and The New York Times a distant third.1 The daily network
audience number, comprising USA TODAY print readers and visitors to USATODAY.com, is more than 6.1
million adults, an increase of more than 12% from MRI’s Fall 2008 study. “USA TODAY is both the top-selling
and most widely read print newspaper in the country,” said David Hunke, president and publisher of USA
TODAY. “The most recent numbers from MRI show that more people are choosing to read USA TODAY than
any other newspaper in the country, with 291,000 more print readers per day than our nearest competitor,
The Wall Street Journal, and 1 million more print readers than The New York Times.” In addition, USA TODAY
is the newspaper leader in single copy newsstand sales — sales that represent customers who actively seek
out the newspaper each day and pay full newsstand price. USA TODAY is also the only regionally neutral
paper, providing an unbiased national perspective.

USA TODAY’s readers are smart, successful professionals. Their average household income is $132,000 and
84% of them have attended college. What attracts this educated, intelligent audience to USA TODAY? Its
exclusive reporting and credentialed writers.

Exclusive reporting

USA TODAY’s colorful format is deceptive. Wrapped in its bright packaging are incisive, exclusive news stories,
written by experts, reviewed by experts, and acclaimed by peers. The Columbia Journalism Review writes,
“USA TODAY beat the Times on a follow-up to a story for which the Times just won a Pulitzer, while the
Times' website 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.” 2

In 2009, writers at USA TODAY were awarded the Maria Moors Cabet Prize, the Grantham Prize for
Excellence, the New York Press Club Award, Editor & Publisher and Mediaweek EPpy Awards and the National
Headliner Award, to name a few.

Credentialed writers

USA TODAY writers and researchers are some of the most educated and experienced writers in the country
with unprecedented access to top business, religious and political leaders.

David Lynch, USA TODAY’s global business writer, earned his BA with honors from Wesleyan University and
his MA in international relations from Yale. He was awarded the Nieman Fellowship from Harvard in 2002
and was an Oxford Union debate member at Oxford in 1999. As USA TODAY’s first chief of European
correspondents, he shaped international coverage and reported from 35 countries, covering the 1999 war in
Kosovo, the Northern Ireland peace process and European economic developments. As the founding Beijing
bureau chief, he oversaw the coverage of all political, economic and social developments in China. In his
current role as USA TODAY’s global business writer, Lynch writes about trade policy, current account deficit,
oil imports and the global economy. He is currently researching and writing a book on the rise and fall of the
Irish economy.

1
Source: Fall 2009 Mediamark Research Inc. (MRI) report. November 16, 2009.
2
May 11, 2006

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 USA TODAY and the
Collegiate Readership Program
Overview
Dan Vergano, science correspondent and Web columnist for USA TODAY, earned his BS degree in aerospace
engineering from Penn State University and his MA from George Washington University in science,
technology and public policy. He is a Harvard Fellow of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism and has written
articles for Science, New Scientist, Men’s Health, The Washington Post and Symmetry magazine. He serves as
chairman for the American Institute of Physics Science Writing Award Committee and was a member of
NAKFI Science Writing Award Committee (2005–2008). Prior to joining USA TODAY, he served as the D.C.
correspondent for the Medical Tribune; the deputy editor for Violence Prevention and Personal Safety
newsletter; a researcher for HealthWeek/Newsweek Productions, PBS and Science News; and a policy analyst
and aerospace engineer at ANSER. Early in his career, he was a clerk for the Food and Drug Administration,
a research fellow for the Joint Institute for the Advancement of Flight Sciences, and a science and environ-
mental issues writer for New York University.

Joan Biskupic, USA TODAY’s Supreme Court reporter, earned her undergrad at Marquette and her law
degree at Georgetown. She is a regular panelist on PBS’s Washington Week and is the author of several legal
reference books, including Congressional Quarterly’s two-volume encyclopedia on the Supreme Court (3rd Ed.,
1997, with co-author Elder Witt). She is also author of Sandra Day O’Connor: How the First Woman on the
Supreme Court Became Its Most Influential Justice (HarperCollins, 2005) and The Life and Constitution of
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia (2009).

Susan Page, USA TODAY’s Washington bureau chief, earned her BA at Northwestern and her MA from
Columbia, where she was a Pulitzer Fellow. She has been covering American politics and the presidency
through seven national elections and four presidential administrations. She is a weekly panelist on PBS’s Eye
on Washington, often guest-hosts NPR’s The Diane Rehm Show, and regularly appears on CNN, MSNBC, Fox
News and other networks. Her writing has won many national awards, including the Gerald R. Ford Prize for
Distinguished Reporting on the Presidency, the Merriman Smith Memorial Award for Deadline Reporting on
the Presidency and the Sigma Delta Chi Award for Washington Correspondence (shared).

USA TODAY: A valuable college course resource

USA TODAY is an influential voice that contributes to and reflects on contemporary discourse in myriad
industries and fields. It can and should contribute to your classroom dialogue.

An influential voice in contemporary discourse

With a multi-year publication timeline, college textbooks, especially within certain fields, are outdated by the
time they are available to your students. USA TODAY is a way to provide your students with the contemporary
discourse of your field, be it business and marketing, economics, technology, mass communication, the
humanities or any number of other disciplines.

USA TODAY’s mission — to “serve as a forum for better understanding and unity to make the USA truly one
nation”3 — asks the public to become informed and engaged. And because of its wide reach, it is not only
a forum but also an influential voice within the public discourse. Campaign, the leading U.K. advertising trade
magazine, ranked USA TODAY as the number two global paper. Noting its high worldwide circulation, it
states that USA TODAY is among “relatively few media that can offer . . . a truly worldwide audience.”4 And
B-to-Be Media Business magazine named USA TODAY as one of the 25 most influential business and industry
publications.5 Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott says he reads USA TODAY to see what’s going on in the country.
Former Morgan Stanley CEO Phil Purcell began to read USA TODAY when he realized he had to “because so
many of my customers do.” And FedEx CEO Fred Smith says he reads USA TODAY every day.

3
Source: Allen H. Neuharth, Founder of USA TODAY, September 15, 1982.
4
Source: Campaign, 27 May 2005
5
Source: B-to-B Media Business 2006 special report

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 USA TODAY and the
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Overview

Because of its deep investigative reporting, the stories in USA TODAY boast a powerful influence. In
December 2009, Tom Vanden Brook, Ken Dilanian and Ray Locker uncovered the military’s common practice
of hiring newly retired generals and admirals back as contractors, called “senior mentors,” even as they are
employed with companies seeking Defense Department contracts. Though legal, the unusual arrangement
raises obvious ethical questions. Because of this exclusive USA TODAY report, Senator McCain called for the
Pentagon to rewrite its ethics code pertaining to this practice, a Senate oversight panel launched an investi-
gation into the Pentagon’s paid advisors practices and Defense Secretary Robert Gates ordered a high-level
review of the Pentagon’s senior mentor practices.

In USA TODAY’s 2008 “The Smokestack Effect: Toxic Air and America’s Schools” series, Blake Morrison and
Brad Heath used the government’s own data and modeling software to identify schools in toxic hot spots.
The reporters researched the story for eight months, working initially with the University of Massachusetts —
Amherst, then with University of Maryland and Johns Hopkins’ Bloomberg School of Public Health to take
"snapshots" of the air at almost 95 schools in 30 states. As a result of this series, the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) launched a $2.5 million monitoring program, and for the first time, the EPA has sent out
regulators to monitor the air quality outside schools across the country. Initial EPA data revealed high levels
(over 100% higher than accepted rates for long-term exposure) of toxins in school air.

Access to top leaders

USA TODAY can deliver to your classroom the ideas of top business, political and religious leaders. For
example, for the feature “The Suite Spot: Advice from the Top,” reporter Del Jones interviews business leaders
from Fortune 1000 companies. The column provides management and corporate strategy guidance on a
particular management issue each month by reporting how a top executive tackled the same issue. Del Jones
writes every “Advice from the Top” feature to ensure quality, a consistent voice and a high level of
management expertise. He has been USA TODAY's corporate management reporter for the past 10 years and
has a journalism degree from the University of New Mexico and an MBA from the University of Texas. Jones
writes, “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 e-mail addresses so that
they may have the opportunity to be quoted in my stories.” Recent CEO profiles include Richard Anderson,
CEO of Delta Airlines; Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce.com; Farooq Kathwari, CEO of furniture retailer Ethan
Allen; Jim McNerney, CEO of Boeing; and John Hammergren, CEO of healthcare giant McKesson.

USA TODAY’s access to top leaders crosses industry lines. USA TODAY’s Dan Reed, a specialist in the airline
industry, has been writing about that particular industry for more than 20 years. He writes, “As THE longest-
serving airline beat reporter at any U.S. newspaper, I always thought I had pretty good access to airline CEOs
and other senior airline executives. Then, in 2002, I joined USA TODAY and was shocked at how much better
my access to the CEOs and senior managers became. As the nation's largest, most widely read newspaper,
and as one of the most respected media outlets and setter of the national agenda, USA TODAY opens doors
to me that previously were closed, and opens far more easily for me doors that sometimes required a strong
push to get through…since I've been with USA TODAY they've rarely turned down an interview request, and
generally respond quickly (sometimes in the same day) with an interview.”

Consistent, regular features

Because USA TODAY is a highly-formatted newspaper, professors can depend on regular features within their
scholarly field. For example, an economics or finance professor can depend on news germane to his/her
courses in Monday’s “Market Trends,” Tuesday’s “Your Money” with Sandra Block and Friday’s “Managing
Your Money” and “Investing” with John Waggoner. And through USA TODAY itself, a journalism instructor
can introduce his/her students to what Jon Fine of BusinessWeek calls, “the most interesting and coherent
approach to rethinking journalism and news-gathering.”6
6
26 February 2007

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 USA TODAY and the
Collegiate Readership Program
Overview

Collegiate Readership Program and its academic resources

The Collegiate Readership Program provides students with access to newspapers through campus
readership and classroom distribution. USA TODAY and a combination of local, regional and/or national
newspapers (chosen by the college or university) are delivered each weekday morning to displays in the
lobbies of residence halls and at other campus locations. Students may then select one or more of the
newspapers for causal reading or for use as part of course assignments. USA TODAY newspapers can be
integrated into course syllabi to help provide students with a real-world connection to course content.

To support the use of USA TODAY in college courses and on college campuses, USA TODAY has a dedicated
education staff that develops relevant education resources and strategic partnerships.

Case studies provide an introduction to and discussion of current issues as a starting point for more
ambitious research projects or public debates. Each is comprised of a collection of articles, researched,
written and published recently by USA TODAY. Each examines thought-provoking topics related to a broad
range of issues with discussion questions developed in collaboration with professors and subject matter
experts. Case studies are published across several academic fields. Recent case study topics include campus
violence, climate change, cybercrime, elderly care and corporate social responsibility.

Standing features charts focus on the regular features that appear in USA TODAY and may be useful to
professors teaching business, journalism, composition and related courses. Professors can familiarize
themselves with USA TODAY features relevant to their course(s) and require students to pick up the
newspaper on days in which those features appear.

USA TODAY’s Voices website helps students learn about, debate and act on issues of importance in the
country and world. It provides students with the information and tools they need to spearhead discussions,
forums and debates on topics like stem cell research, human rights, Iraq and gas prices.

USA TODAY partners with organizations such as Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE), Phi Theta Kappa,
American Student Government Association (ASGA) and Conference on Student Government Associations
(COSGA) to provide active support for important college student initiatives. It also partners with key non-
profit organizations. For example, USA TODAY’s partnership with the National Council of Teachers of
English allows the newspaper to publish up-and-coming college journalists’ and writers’ work in a USA
TODAY gallery in the National Gallery of Writing.

Through its CEO Forums, hosted at business schools on Collegiate Readership Program campuses, USA
TODAY helps future business people learn from leaders who are at the top of their industries. Recent CEO
Forums include Miles White, CEO, Abbott Laboratories at Michigan State University; Jeffrey Immelt, CEO,
General Electric at the Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business; Steve Ballmer, CEO, Microsoft at the
University of Washington School of Business; Brian Roberts, CEO, Comcast at MIT’s Sloan School of
Management; Anne Mulcahy, CEO, Xerox at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business;
Morgan Freeman and James Ackerman, CEO, Clickstar at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management; and
Wendell Weeks, CEO, Corning at the UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School.

Campus Coverage is a weekly e-mail news digest that features USA TODAY stories of interest to the
higher education community.

Roundtable is a monthly newsletter that builds our collegiate community by

informing student leaders of relevant national and collegiate news while also seeking
their opinions and perspectives.

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