Talk:USA Today/Archive 1

Is USA Today centrist?
Among the best-selling American newspapers, there's a perception that The New York Times is to the left, The Wall Street Journal is to the right, and USA Today is at the center. Is this correct? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 128.250.37.103 (talk • contribs) 17:50, 5 April 2005 (UTC-8)

Response: The Wall Street Journal is a business newspaper. It is to the right, on issues that the business community cares about. Not religious or cultural issues. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.19.173.27 (talk • contribs) 13:48, 3 December 2005 (UTC-8)

What about USA Today the Television show? Can anyone elaborate on this? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 65.213.7.6 (talk • contribs) 14:48, 15 December 2005 (UTC-*)


 * I don't know. Can you sign your posts? Moncrief 23:14, 26 June 2006 (UTC)


 * The Wall Street Journal's editorial policy is generally considered to be on the far right, although not the "Religious Right." The New York Times is vaguely left of center. USA Today has no coherent ideological orientation, and is often assailed by those within journalism that feel a paper of that size should stand for something. (I have, however, heard union activists refer to it as a "scab paper" due to the parent company's anti-union history.) -- Orange Mike 18:27, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Edit
I deleted the bit about USA Today being the "de facto" national paper of the United States. That's quite a broad allegation and I don't think it's really an accurate one. The United States has much more of a local paper system than many countries- there is no real "national paper". —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.120.100.75 (talk • contribs) 14:52, 26 December 2005 (UTC-8)


 * Thank you! Cripes.  That was in the article???  Moncrief 23:14, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Photo
I don't think it's really fair to have a photo of a very atypical USA Today as the main template photo here. That edition of the paper was an infamous mistake; shouldn't the template photo be a more average edition of the paper? Moncrief 23:14, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

USA TODAY vs. USA Today
Why is this under USA Today with a redirect to the other? The newspaper itself consistently uses the all-caps format. Shouldn't we switch this material to the other and redirect this page to the right place? -- Orange Mike 18:28, 31 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Agree with Orange Mike. The website always refers to the paper as 'USA TODAY'... the article shoudl reflect this preference.  I am not quite sure how to do this, but maybe a more advanced user could be so kind as to correct this. 24.68.249.197 19:42, 2 July 2007 (UTC)


 * No, we should follow Wikipedia practice. It doesn't matter that the paper likes to write its name in all-caps; that's a conceit we don't have to indulge. See WP:MOSTM. I've moved it back. Pro hib it O ni o ns  (T) 08:53, 26 July 2007 (UTC)


 * The onion-banner is right on this one; I was wrong. -- Orange Mike 14:25, 26 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Now if only we could convince the fans of ABBA that it applies to that page as well... Regards, Pro hib it O ni o ns  (T) 19:11, 26 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Glad to see it moved back, per Onions. But don't let's get crazy here ... ABBA is an acronym initialism. ``` W i k i W i s t a h W a s s a p ``` 03:48, 28 July 2007 (UTC) (updated 18:34, 28 July 2007 (UTC))


 * I see the article is back to having USA TODAY throughout it. Looks awful. - Dudesleeper / Talk  19:31, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

sold in unique vending machines?
If it is unique, can someone put a picture of one in the article? -- Dandelions 14:34, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:USAToday.jpg
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Broadsheets
Neither The Mail nor The Sun is a broadsheet newspaper, so why are they ahead of USA Today in these rankings? Widmerpool 11:02, 12 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Fixed. -- Orange Mike 14:28, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Distribution in territories?
The opening reads "USA Today is distributed in all 50 states." It would be interesting to add if it is distributed in Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands, or other places outside the 50 states. Does anyone know if it is distributed there (and better, why or why not)? Rigadoun (talk) 02:11, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Writers
There should a list of writers for USA Today and their Wikipedia articles (see the New York Times page as an example). If there isn't an article for a writer, then it should be created.Blaylockjam10 (talk) 08:19, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Many of their writers are not notable. If they are notable, they should get their own articles. (Not every writer for the Times is notable, for that matter.) -- Orange Mike  &#x007C;   Talk  15:41, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

USA Today Editions
Why is this Article only about the USA Today NO.1 IN THE USA (USA Today NATIONAL Edition). Leaving out the USA Today Available Around The World (USA Today INTERNATIONAL Edition) Mr Taz (talk) 20:15, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Mideast Conflict
Like many other newspapers, it would be interesting to have sources on USA Today's positions and policies on the Mideast conflict, and whether people believe it is pro-Israel/pro-Palestinian. ADM (talk) 05:21, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Circulation
I felt it was important to clarify the position on circulation. In order to give a fuller picture it is necessary to note that the WSJ's circulation figures include online subscriptions something that is not so for the other leading dailies. The average reader might well expect 'circulation' to be the the number of printed copies sold.Daffodillman (talk) 12:56, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

bad writing in the first paragraph
The line "The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003." Something it previously held since 2003 is horrible. You are talking about a data between 2003 and some unknown time afterwards that doesnt include present day? The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States. In the last decade, USA Today had the largest circulation from 2003 to ????. or something. i just think that line previously held since 2003 is a jumble of crap — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.6.102.208 (talk) 11:48, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Vandalism
This entry has been vandalised. Would someone knowledgeable please restore it? Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.171.71.228 (talk) 23:06, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Archive
This link is placed so web.archive.org will archive it http://m.usatoday.com/ WhisperToMe (talk) 04:06, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

"Controversial incidents" section
Considering this is about only one incident and it's pretty big, do you think that this section could stand alone as its own article? SchuminWeb (Talk) 20:31, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Cost of paper doubling?
Is this a wild rumour, or is the cost of a copy going up from $1 to $2? XOttawahitech (talk) 13:41, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

Impending probable deletion of an image on Commons.
The "Back to the Future" logo is almost certainly going to be deleted on Commons soon, per c:Commons:Deletion requests/File:USA Today BTTF Logo.svg, as a copyright violation. It's quite likely usable here under 'fair use'... someone might want to transfer it over before it goes away. Revent talk 15:44, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

Lead photo: why use an atypical issue?
For the top image of the paper, why are we using an issue with the logo repurposed with the hats getting thrown in a ring? I think we should be using an issue that has a more typical layout / design. Plus Rubio is a tool. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:4898:80e8:1::478 (talk) 23:50, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20150910122933/http://auditedmedia.com/media/310879/usat-quarterly-report-march-2015.pdf to http://auditedmedia.com/media/310879/usat-quarterly-report-march-2015.pdf

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A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion: You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 19:09, 5 October 2020 (UTC)
 * 1982.09.15 USA Today.jpg

Official name: USA TODAY
The name of the newspaper, USA TODAY, appears nowhere in this article with the official capitalisation. I think in the infobox it should say the official name, and maybe in the first sentence (because there's a WP policy that company names should generally appear in official spelling in the first sentence; don't know if that applies here as well). What do y'all think? Andibrema (talk) 02:17, 19 December 2020 (UTC)


 * See MOS:CAPS. Wikipedia generally capitalizes only the first letter of each word in a trade name or title of a creative work, regardless of how the text is displayed on the page (or the product, the advertising for it, etc.). It might be appropriate to add a parenthetical note to the lede, "stylized as USA TODAY". ``` t b w i l l i e ` $1.25 ` 21:54, 22 December 2020 (UTC)


 * For examples, see Cake (band):  and Aldi:  . Also compare The Wall Street Journal and National Post, two other prominent newspapers that style their name in ALLCAPS, but whose Wikipedia articles use mixed case for their names throughout. ``` t b w i l l i e ` $1.25 ` 22:26, 22 December 2020 (UTC)


 * The Wall Street Journal and the National Post are, in fact, not "officially" all caps. CAKE and ALDI, however, are. As you said, the latter two brands are mentioned in their "proper" way in their respective articles (although I do think that the word "stylized" doesn't necessarily implicate that). This article, on the other hand, doesn't even bother to mention it once; once again, I do not think it should be spelled all caps throughout the article, but at least in the infobox, where the name is not even within the context of a sentence, but rather fulfils the mere purpose of being stated. Andibrema (talk) 14:39, 29 December 2020 (UTC)


 * I've never liked the word "stylized" used this way, but Wikipedia seems to have settled on it -- it's invariably the word that lede paragraphs use when referring to a typographical affectation of this sort. The way it's done in other Wikipedia articles is to use the non-standard "trademark" capitalization (or punctuation, as the case may be) in a parenthetical note in the lede, and to use standard capitalization both in the infobox and throughout the rest of the article. I would note that in this case, the infobox also contains images both of the logo and a typical front page, so a reader who looks at the infobox first will see instantly that USA Today refers to itself in all-caps. I agree that this article should make prominent mention of the paper's use of all-caps; I'll make the edit now. ``` t b w i l l i e ` $1.25 ` 02:52, 31 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Thanks for considering my point. I would still argue that a sentence-friendly spelling is unnecessary in the infobox, and I still don't like the word "stylized"; but I'll leave this up to future editors due to missing consensus. Andibrema (talk) 19:31, 1 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Don't get too hung up on what USA TODAY and Gannett would consider "official". The standard at Wikipedia is WP:COMMONNAME, which is more interested in the name that third-party sources use. In reporting on the McLean-based paper and its parent, here's The New York Times with "USA Today": . Here's the Washington Post with "USA Today": . Here's Columbia Journalism Review with "USA Today" (and "USA Today Network", another trademark that Gannett insists on writing always in all-caps): . Here's the Chicago Tribune with "USA Today": . Here's the Los Angeles Times with "USA Today": . These are the only ones I checked, and each of them used standard capitalization. Usage in the infobox should be consistent with COMMONNAME. ``` t b w i l l i e ` $1.25 ` 20:34, 1 January 2021 (UTC)


 * WP:COMMONNAME doesn't say anything about infoboxes though, it's about article names only. I agree about the spelling in sentences and article titles. There is, however, absolutely no Wikipedia policy on titles in infoboxes, so we should apply common sense in a case like that. For me, that would mean: If it's not in a sentence, there is no reason not to use official spelling. Since an infobox is supposed to provide factual information about a topic, it is also very fitting to provide that information - in this case the information: "name". Not: "name in the context of a sentence as used by most publications". Andibrema (talk) 02:09, 3 January 2021 (UTC)


 * MOS:TM is essentially the same principle applied to article text. Granted, it never specifically says, "use standard capitalization in the infobox". But it does say to indicate "stylized as" (aha! so MOS:TMSTYLE is where this phrasing comes from) in the lede only, and "then resume using an alternative that follows the usual rules of spelling and punctuation, for the remainder of the article." I guess the way that I look at it is that in Wikipedia's view, "USA Today" is the name of this newspaper; "USA TODAY" is a typographical affectation by the trademark owner. ``` t b w i l l i e ` $1.25 ` 04:17, 3 January 2021 (UTC)