USA Today

Published by the 90-newspaper group Gannet Company, USA Today was the creation of Allen H. Neuharth who saw it as a national publication that could halt the decline of newspaper readership through innovation in writing, typography and the use of extensive.

In February 1980 Neuharth met with members of a task force to discuss his vision for unique nationally distributed daily newspaper.

By early 1982, a team of news, advertising and production personnel from Gannet’s daily newspaper had developed and printed three different prototypes, which were sent to nearly 5,000 professional people.

After receiving a positive response, Gannet’s board of directors unanimously approved the paper’s launch. The newspaper was launched on September 15, 1982; with 155,000 copies of the first edition of USA Today hit the newsstands. It was revealing a new and noticeable design deviation.

Along with the compacting of stories by using a tight writing style, USA Today included a bright and colourful display filled with photograph, maps, charts, graphs and other such informational graphics. Barely a month after its debut, USA Today’s circulation hit 363,879 double the original year-end projection, and topped the 1 million mark just seven months after its introduction.

By the end of its third year, USA Today had become the second largest paper in the country, with a circulation topped only by The Wall Street Journal.

To stay ahead of the imitative competition, USA Today decided t become a more serious newspaper with improved journalism. The shift from primarily soft news to hard news began with the space shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986. By 1991, editors begin focus much more sharply on hard news rather than soft news.

The first major redesign in USA Today’s history occurred in 2000 as the paper move from a 54 inch to a 50 inch width. The goal of the redesign was to make the paper easier to read and cleaner in design.
USA Today

Early history of The Wall Street Journal

Publisher of the Journal, Dow Jones & Company was founded in 1882 in a small basement office at 15 Wall Street in New York.  Dow Jones and Company soon bought the first financial printing press. The company was the first to use the telegraph to transmit financial news from London and Boston to New York.

Wall Street Journal was founded on July 8, 1889 by three journalists Charles Bergstresser, Charles Henry Dow, and Edward David Jones. One of the founder names Edward Jones then converted Customers’ Afternoon Letter into The Wall Street Journal which was first published in year 1889. Customers Afternoon Letter actually first published in year 1883 before conversion.

The Wall Street Journal was designed for the business community: Its object is to give fully and fairly the daily news attending the fluctuation in prices of stocks, bonds and some classes of commodities.

Although named for a small area on Manhattan Island in New York, the newspaper had a national scope and assured readers that it would search for and reports the news in the United States, Canada and Europe.

In January 1899, unexpectedly, and with no public reason given, Edward D. Jones retired from the firm of Dow Jones & Company. The remaining owners at that time Charles H. Dow, Charles M. Bergstresser, Thomas F. Woodlock and Franck M. Brady – assumed all assets and liabilities of the firm and retained the name.

Changed hand in 1902 bought by Clarence Walker Barron, circulation was around 7000 copies at that time increased to 50,000 copies by the end of 1920s.
Early history of The Wall Street Journal