Newspapers, Usa Today | featured news

It’s face-lift time for the newspaper known for its pie charts. USA Today, with its colorful omnipresence on airport newsstands and outside the doors of hotel rooms, is showing off its new look on Friday. And the makeover for the paper, based just outside of the Washington beltway, comes straight from Silicon Valley.

USA Today named David Callaway, who had been the top editor at MarketWatch since 2000, as its new editor. At the paper, he rejoins Larry Kramer, founder of MarketWatch, who in May was named publisher of USA Today.

People checking out of a hotel are usually in a hurry, whether on their way to catch a plane, return a rental car or get back to their families. Certainly they’re too busy to notice or care about a measly extra charge for 75 cents for an unrequested newspaper.

USA Today suffered a steep drop, losing the top spot in weekday circulation for the first time since the 1990s to The Wall Street Journal. The New York Times’ weekday circulation fell 7.3 percent.