USA TODAY, YESTERDAY

USA Today has announced that, due to progressively declining readership, it will restrict its daily circulation to Monday, Wednesday and Friday with rehashed headlines and stories taken from the more successful means of attracting readers through it’s award-winning news and entertainment Website http://www.usatoday.com/.

Plummeting advertising sales reflect how nearly every business sector is experiencing less than profitable returns on their investments. However quaint the suggestion may appear, industry officials have dubbed the updated newspaper as “USA Yesterday”, which has also been cited as a reflection on what also appears to be the state of America’s influence in the global marketplace.

After 26 years of being a staple in providing the latest in worldwide reporting, the paper’s goal of surpassing The Times of India circulation of 2.8M English language readers has come to end. It was a good run, but there’s no consolation for being second best with an all time high of 2.6 million.

After double digit increases in circulation in the 90’s, figures in the new millennium have flat-lined. Some cite the plagiarized and fabricated stories of foreign correspondent Jack Kelley that was uncovered in 2004, and the subsequent resignation of Editor Karen Jurgensen, as the beginning of the decline of USA Today. As others adamantly claim, the actual cause is most likely that access to the Internet as an inexpensive alternative to information services is the primarily cause for the massive declines in newspaper circulation.

Rumors are also abound that the flashy, color-filled photos on the front page of USA Today will succumb to nothing more than watercolor caricatures as submitted from anyone as creative as a third grader. Jeff Foxworthy has declined to add humorous captions because he would be offered no more in compensation that those who are chosen for their artistic contributions, which is solely name recognition.

“The Nation’s Newspaper”, published by the Gannett Company, is now among over 1,000 non-daily publications. Company spokesmen declined to comment on the future of one of its other publication, USA Weekly, although insiders have suggested that it, too, may face a new format and renamed USA Monthly.
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Although this is strictly written as satire, it’s a direct reference to the situation confronting every newspaper: fewer subscriptions, including cancellations and non-renewals, and plummeting advertising sales.In reality, USA Today and The Wall Street Journal are the two exceptions to the otherwise double-digit decline in other newspapers’ loss of readers.

The most dramatic change in the newspaper industry came as a surprise when The New York Times announced on January 5 that it is selling advertising space on its front page. Pricing is reportedly set at $75K weekdays and $100K on Sundays with the commitment of placing an ad 26 times during the year. The Washington Post remains the sole remaining national newspaper with front-page, news-only content.

Globally, the survival of newspapers is of grave concern, especially evidenced in France with the announcement of President Nicolas Sarkozy that tax breaks for local delivery services and free subscriptions to college students. President Sarkozy is prepared to double the government’s amount of advertising. Still, any consideration that the government may offer as support isn’t seen as a solution for the newspaper industry.

The director of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Scott Bosley, expressed his view that there would be a public perception that government influence may influence the integrity of journalism.

As the economic outlook for the nation is extremely dismal, so is the future of daily publications. is in jeopardy.