Today's Local News

Today's Local News was a free, six-day-a-week broadsheet newspaper that covered northern San Diego County in California.

A rare modern-day start-up of a metropolitan daily broadsheet newspaper, Today's Local News was the attempt by Copley Press, owner of The San Diego Union-Tribune, to get full-market coverage in the prosperous North County region also covered by the Lee Enterprises-owned North County Times and The Coast News. Copley began printing the new suburban paper November 4, 2004, delivering more than 75,000 copies free to homes from Tuesday to Sunday.

The news staff and photographers, mostly recruited and hired between September and October 2004, launched the first edition of this daily newspaper in less than eight weeks. The paper featured large, colorful photos; exceptional graphics; and vertical section rails highlighted by the signature circular outlines -- each filled with a photo teasing interior content. Given the task of creating the "newspaper of the future," the concepts for content, design and section sequencing were created from the ground up mostly by young journalists, photojournalists and graphic artists. Staff members were encouraged to create new ideas for news presentation, and studied innovation tactics on a daily basis. Some members of the staff visited and studied other progressive newspapers, and attended innovation seminars as well as corporate change management training. It was common for a new concept to be discussed one day and then be utilized in the next day's edition -- no permission from corporate was needed.

Its content was almost entirely local, with a concentration on community news and features. At first it included state and national news from its AP contract, but these were soon dropped.

Since its launch, Today's Local News dropped Tuesday publication (going from six to five days a week) and, in October 2006, eliminated 26 positions. The staff wrote stories for the new paper that sometimes also appeared in the North County section of the Union-Tribune.

The publication ceased distribution and closed on July 9, 2009, when it laid off its entire staff.