In a recent USA Today column, Al Neuharth commented on the death of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, whom he met in London in 1988. He said he was impressed by her “politeness and firmness.” And he quoted Thatcher as saying, “I’m always looking ahead. I’ll be looking ahead until the day I die.”
Neuharth died April 19 at age 89 after a fall in his home in Florida. He left behind a powerful legacy as a Gannett newspaper tycoon, creator and spirit of USA Today and founder of the Freedom Forum and its Newseum, a museum of news.
Like Thatcher, he was always looking ahead until the day he died, never glancing back at his critics and detractors who charged that he was brash, flamboyant, abrasive and vain. He liked picking fights and sticking thumbs in the eyes of big guys such as Donald Trump and former Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee.
When Neuharth completed one project, he was always ready to tackle another. He never let the prospect of failure discourage him. As a young World War II veteran-an Army infantryman who won the Bronze Star-just out of college, he founded in 1952 a weekly tabloid newspaper, SoDak Sports. Printed on peach-colored paper, it covered high school sports across his home state of South Dakota. It flopped for lack of ads, but he didn’t give up.
“Failure shouldn’t stop your drive to succeed,” he once said. “How you respond to failure makes all the difference.”
He responded by sticking with journalism. He took various reporting jobs, rose through the ranks to become a top editor of Knight Ridder newspapers in Detroit and Miami, and topped out as chairman of the Gannett Co. Through the relentless acquisition of newspapers and TV stations, he built Gannett into one of the nation’s largest media conglomerates.
In 1982, Al envisioned a need for a national newspaper. And through sheer force of powerful personality and perspicacious persuasion-Al always liked alliteration-squeezed start-up money from a reluctant Gannett board of directors. The result was USA Today.
It was dubbed “Neuharth’s Folly” by media analysts who predicted it would be a flop. In its first four years in existence, the maverick newspaper bled red ink, losing millions of dollars a month. Readers liked its lively color, tightly written stories and extensive use of charts and graphics to explain complicated concepts. But advertisers were wary. Undeterred, Al hung in there. He scoffed at stuffed-shirt newspaper elitists who looked down their noses and pooh-poohed USA Today as “McPaper,” fast-food journalism at its worst.
But Al had the last laugh. The advertisers as well as the readers came around, and some 30 years later USA Today is the nation’s second-largest newspaper (just behind the Wall Street Journal) and has one of the most widely read Internet news sites in the world.
Still looking ahead when he retired as chairman of Gannett in 1989, Neuharth founded the Freedom Forum, an educational institution dedicated to the global promotion of the First Amendment’s principles of free press and free speech. He also founded the Newseum, a 250,000-square-foot museum of news on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C.
What I admired most about Al and his newspaper was his belief in real people, his crusade to try to communicate with everyone-rich and poor, young and old, immigrant and citizen-and provide them with good, solid, factual information. He insisted that the information had to sparkle with clarity, fairness and objectivity, concepts that sometimes get short shrift in this new media age. He steadfastly refused to have his newspaper endorse political candidates, lest it mar that reputation for fairness and objectivity.
Moreover, he was a bold champion of women’s and minority rights, putting them into greater positions of power than they had had in most news media organizations up to the time that he came along. He also made sure women and minorities did not get short shrift in news coverage, urging reporters to get more women and minorities into their stories.
Al Neuharth believed in and lived the slogan he created that has appeared in USA Today every day since its inception:
“USA Today hopes to serve as a forum for better understanding and unity to help make the USA Today truly one nation.”
It might sound corny to some sophisticates, but he loved America. He came from the heartland and unity was his vision. It is his legacy to all of us in the news business, if we can keep it.
Richard Benedetto is a retired USA Today White House correspondent and columnist. He now teaches for The Fund for American Studies at Georgetown University, and politics & journalism at American University.
Perspective, Pages 78 on 04/28/2013