On February 24, our class met with Joel Sucherman, executive producer of USA Today. Sucherman stated that anyone can be a publisher; all you need is a PC and enough know-how to create a site. But it takes a lot of work to keep that site interesting enough to keep readers coming back.

Even though the face of the news has changed, Sucherman said that the news world will always remain relevant because the world needs journalism; people always want to know what is going on in the world. With the advent of the internet, news can be updated in real-time. A late-breaking event can be covered in a matter of seconds, rather than waiting until the day afterwards to break the story in the next edition of the paper.

When presenting to the class, Sucherman mentioned that enterprise content, surveillance, and reader voice were all important in making a paper function. Each is equally important. The enterprise content, the methods used to present the stories, can be presented in a way that is pleasing to the viewer. Getting surveillance on the story can be useful for gaining a first-hand perspective on it. And the reader voice can provide feedback on, among other things, how the other two are utilized, and even suggest ways to improve it.

Sucherman likened the modern journalist to a fuzzy tail. Before the advent of the internet, you usually had one person for each task. Today, you need to do everything; capture video, take notes or photos, and write the stories. By being a jack-of-all-trades, one is able to present a dynamic story to the paper.

Sucherman also noted that when publishing a paper, a well-done database is good for visually telling a story. This can be seen in the very paper Sucherman works for; USA Today has taken this approach since their founding in 1982. Whereas other papers would have lines and lines of text, USA Today used included multiple charts and color photos. It also color-coded each section of the paper (and each section of its website) so readers can easily find the section they need. Others have mocked this practice, but by presenting the news in an eye-catching fashion, USA Today is able to easily grasp and keep the reader’s attention, leading them to come back for more.