Neuharth Pulls Plug On Kid Supplement Idea

By: Mark Fitzgerald Allen H. Neuharth launched USA Today in the brutal recession year of 1982, and watched it grow to become the nation's largest-circulation daily. But he's concluded that the stubborn economic woes dogging papers in 2002 are too much to go ahead with his latest pet project: a weekend newspaper supplement aimed at young children.

Neuharth had pitched his proposal for the supplement, which he calls "The Paper '4' Kids," to 11 top executives attending this spring's Newspaper Association of America convention in New Orleans. He asked them for funding for a yearlong feasibility study.

In a memo sent recently to the executives, Neuharth wrote that he has "reluctantly but realistically ... concluded this will not fly at this time. We're putting the idea and the registered trademark on ice."

Neuharth's memo to such industry figures as Tribune Co.'s Dennis FitzSimons, Knight Ridder's Tony Ridder, and McClatchy Co.'s Gary Pruitt suggests industry leaders were willing to distribute the supplement if it ever got off the ground, but few were willing to risk any money on the venture. "There is insufficient investment interest at this time in funding a meaningful R and D [research and development] project that could effectively measure the reader and advertiser market potential for such a national newspaper supplement," Neuharth wrote. "In New Orleans, I said undertaking an under-funded research project would be a waste of your money and my time."

Growing newspaper readership among children has been a recent passion of Neuharth's, who aimed his proposed supplement at the 50 million American children under the age of 13. Neuharth has personal reasons for his interest. He and his wife Rachel Fornes have six children ages 11 and younger. Clearly the retired Gannett Co. chairman retains a kid's sense of mischievousness as well: an early prototype of the children's supplement bore the name critics once hung on USA Today: McPaper.