I lived in the US many years ago. USA Today was then already a bit of a joke - always a color pie chart on the front page, ludicrously generic news and sports, and on the last page 1 paragraph of news per state for an entire state (if something newsworthy happened according to the editor I guess). Let’s just say very much not a highbrow paper.

I visited the US again last year and got the USA Today in my hotel. I thought I was being pranked. The writing, tone, complexity had all plummeted to the level of a child. That paper is basically for people who can’t figure out how to get their news from Yahoo. The Same people who get value from TV Guide.

Let me guess what Palantir will tell them: your audience is dying and/or illiterate. Add cartoons. You’re welcome.

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lkbm 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

USA Today also owns a huge number of local papers -- possibly most. The main local papers in the three last places I've lived (Austin TX, South Bend IN, Asheville NC area) were all USA Today Co.-owned. (Used to be called Gannett.)

It's not dying. Or, at least, it's doing better than anyone else.

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ceejayoz 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

My local USA Today-owned paper moved from a giant historic building (800 people when I worked there), to a new much smaller office (about 150 people at that point), to announcing they're moving to a coworking space.

They're dying, it's just a slow bleed-out.

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rootusrootus 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I decided to spot check a few, including places like Portland and Seattle, and it seems like private ownership by a family for the last century is pretty common. And isn't the main paper in Austin the Austin American-Statesman? That's the Hearst family. Though looking a little deeper, they were owned by Gannett until last year.

	▲	NegativeLatency 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Yes for big cities, but there are very very few independent local papers in less populated areas, for example: https://www.portlandmercury.com/news/with-a-new-media-conglo... Also the Oregonian (big Portland paper) and the Seattle Times (big Seattle paper) are not locally owned anymore.

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jihadjihad 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Let me guess what Palantir will tell them: your audience is dying and/or illiterate. Add cartoons. You’re welcome.

And USA Today will be billed $50M for the privilege.

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BiraIgnacio 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Jokes aside, I do honestly wonder what they expect to learn from this kind of analysis.

	▲	wildzzz 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		For the newspaper: elderly people staying in 2 and 3 star hotels eating their free continental breakfast. For their website: slightly younger elderly people on their ipada eating breakfast at home. USA Today, feel free to contact me for payment details