Gannet has a USA Today Collegiate Readership Program that has been cleverly marketed to colleges and universities across the country as a way to enlighten our students and improve the journalism skills of the campus newspaper writers.

Here is the bottom line- This USA Today program is nothing more than a surreptitious way to curry favor with students and administrators under the guise of providing a valuable educational service to our community. Make no mistake about it. The goal of the USA Today readership program is not to enlighten our students and broaden their perspectives as they would have you believe.

Their sneaky plan involves bringing USA Today and usually the New York Times on campus along with the local Gannett metropolitan newspaper- all free of charge to the students but paid for by the college administration. That way they can count all Gannett newspapers on campus as paid circulation and justify ad rate increases. The typical metropolitan newspaper is written on an 8th grade reading level. Is that the kind of education and enlightenment that our students can look forward too?

A few days after the local Gannett paper and two national papers are made available for free in nice shiny racks on the campus, the multitude of ad reps for the local Gannett paper will be calling on every local business within a 10-mile radius of the campus and they will of course call EVERY national advertiser that has used the college paper in the last 5 years. They will offer the college newspaper ad customers a column inch rate that the college paper can’t possibly match. They will do this long enough to destroy the advertising revenue of the college paper. This is how Gannett gobbles up the competition.

"Citizen Kane" is often considered by movie critics to be the best movie EVER PRODUCED. "Citizen Kane" is a 1941 mystery/drama film. Released by RKO Pictures, it was the first feature film directed by Orson Welles. The story traces the life and career of Charles Foster Kane, a man whose career in the publishing world is born of idealistic social service, but gradually evolves into a ruthless pursuit of power."- Wikipedia

It supposedly centers around the life of William Randolph Hearst, the undisputed giant in the newspaper industry in the early 1900's. He tried everything he could to ban the movie from reaching the theaters and almost succeeded. If you want to see what corporate greed in the newspaper industry looks like, watch the movie.

But don't worry. When all looks lost, Gannett will come to the rescue and buy out the college newspaper. By that time, half the students have already been laid off because the decrease in ad revenue has necessitated drastic measures. No problem- except that the students that are left now work for a huge multimedia conglomerate and they can kiss goodbye the editorial freedom they have taken for granted.

Once the students start working for Gannett, don’t say something that Gannett does not agree with in the college paper, especially when it comes to politics. Study Gannett’s political mindset and commit it to memory or risk being shown the door. Gannett knows how the game is played. Gannett has already bought an independent college newspaper in Florida and is about to buy another student newspaper in Colorado. This is just the beginning. The alarming fact is that Gannett has duped students and their administrators into thinking that their motives are purely altruistic. That should insult the collective intelligence of our future leaders.

The student newspaper, the last bastion of true freedom of expression in the print media, is slowly being destroyed by a modern day Citizen Kane.

and now- the rest of the story...

USA Today and other Newspaper conglomerate Collegiate Readership Programs have flatly denied in print articles that they want to steal your college newspaper readers.

“Gannett dismissed any suggestion that it planned to conquer student journalism.

"There is no grand Gannett strategy," said Tara Connell, a spokeswoman at its headquarters in McLean, Va. "Gannett is not looking to buy college newspapers. We look at all sorts of things." – Nytimes.com 2/18/08.

Oh really? Read this article from The Rocky Mountain Collegian on Mar. 7.

Gannett spokeswoman Tara Connell says the company doesn't rule out buying another student newspaper. "Would we do it again if the circumstances were right? Sure," says Ms. Connell- Wall Street Journal Aug. 9, 2006 and this article from the N.Y. Times:
“Barbara Hall, the USA Today representative who coordinated the UA (university of Alabama) program, said USA Today is trying to create a "learning environment on the University campus through the reading of newspapers." "If they're only interested in increasing student readership, why doesn't [USA Today] just give away the papers for free?" Isom (from the Crimson and White) asked. “Asked that question, Hall said she did not know, except that newspapers cost money to produce and distribute. She said, however, that USA Today is more for businessmen and that the paper "is not going after the college market anytime in the near future." (Crimson White Online- 2/13 /04) Remember- only paid circulation is recognized by the Audit Bureau of Circulation- the oversight organization that verifies circulation numbers that newspapers use to increase their ad rates. That Mrs. Hall, is why you can’t give away your newspapers, but of course you knew that already didn’t you? Just another example of the double talk that Gannett is known for.

Here is the best part- How is the success of the 4-week “pilot program” for the USA Today Readership program on the campus determined? I have witnessed this up close and in person- Attractive smiling USA Today Collegiate Representatives stand if front of the USA Today Readership racks and hand out questionnaires with one hand and give away nice “prizes” with the other hand. Talk about baiting the respondent! The USA Today reps then turn in their results to the SGA and the college administrators- and no one questions the obvious bias!!

Is it just me or does this sound like the election results when Saddam Hussein got 99% of the popular vote? By the way- it is generally accepted that the USA Today Collegiate Readership program was started at Penn State. USA today would have us believe (per their website) that Penn State hatched the idea and USA today blessed it.

Following is an article published in 1989- 8 years before the "first USA today readership program." It appears to me that Gannett wanted a respected academic to endorse and promote the distribution of USA Today and their local metropolitan papers on campuses across the country. By giving credit for the idea to a university president, USA Today and Gannett can feign liability for the inevitable damage done to school newspapers as a result of increased reader and advertiser erosion. Read what is happening now at The Penn State to their school newspaper- the school that started(?) the college readership program 10 years ago! Other schools seem to be catching on.

If they are not interested in acquiring college newspapers or “partnering,” why are large newspaper corporations lobbying almost every college and university in the United States, sometimes for years, to get their papers on your campus? Every free paper on your campus takes readers and advertisers away from your college newspaper. One can only read so many newspapers. The USA Today Collegiate Readership Program and other large newspaper corporations who try to get their newspapers on campus create a media fragmentation that diminishes the advertiser’s effective reach and his ad response rate. . Whereas before, the advertiser could reach the college students with just the college newspaper, now he must consider the loss of readership of the college paper and advertise in the metro and national papers too just to reach the same number of his readers.

The USA Today and New York Times readership program and the new Quadrantone online ad platform- (google it) announced by Gannett, The Tribune, New York Times and Hearst papers will be the death knell of college newspapers unless the students and administrators wake up and dare to challenge the modern day Citizen Kane!