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It was only a tiny story in Adweek’s June 29, 1981 issue—“Gannett Releases Prototypes of National Daily”—but it flagged what would become one of the decade’s biggest media stories.
Al Neuharth, the gadfly Gannett mogul known for banging out copy on a manual typewriter while sitting in his treehouse—would be launching a newspaper called USA Today. Though pulp circulations were slipping, Neuharth argued that America needed a national broadsheet for an on-the-go population: color photos, short articles, big sports section.
Critics branded it the McPaper.
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