USA TODAY Reviews

Company has moved away from journalism toward clickbait, quotas and churn.

I was warned by every former employee I talked to during my job search that the editors were bad. The warnings were accurate. USA Today hires many of its editors from small newspapers. Even the marquee editors it hires are terribly subpar. A few of them are also awful human beings. Upper management has no way to evaluate the performance of editors because they are totally disconnected from frontline workers. The editing of stories is frankly incompetent. Content is driven by editors, who assign cookie cutter stories. Reporters have little say. The paper has constant turnover, as people flee for better jobs. The merger with Gatehouse brought with it huge debt, and the paper's future is in doubt. Some of the editors were focused primarily on awards until the paywell went up. Now it's all about clicks. There's not a holistic approach either. Reporters are expected to compete for stories that may get the most clicks, even if that means duplication of effort.