Joel Sucherman Visits George Mason University

Director of Product Innovation for USA Today, Joel Sucherman, spoke with George Mason University Communications students on journalism in today’s cyber dominated world. 

While many people believe journalism has fundamentally changed, Sucherman believes that only the ways in which people receive the information has changed.  “My principals about journalism don’t change, only the tools have changed,” he told students.   These tools circulate around web-based news that incorporates multimedia and user-generated content, or UGC. 

Sucherman emphasized that more news that is generated online, especially through UGCs, is being shown through print as well. Sucherman called this a “huge shift” for publications.  

When asked if he thought that USA Today makes up in advertising for what it loses in paper sales, Sucherman stated that USA Today hasn’t been hit as hard by the transition to the web news as other publications have been.  One reason for USA Today’s progress could stem from the fact that the online service extends further than other publications by including links to other news sites with similar, or more, information. 

“We understand that our readers look at the NY Times and The Washington Post,” Sucherman said.  As for keeping up with its progress, USA Today focuses a lot on always going where the audience is through widgets and podcasts. 

Sucherman used the publication’s relationship with hotels to exemplify the need to reach consumers outside of the news sites and print news.  As for the elasticity of print material and newspapers: “People say newspapers will be gone in 5 years, I don’t believe that,” Sucherman said, “I don’t think they’ll be gone anytime soon.”