USA TODAY: US & Breaking News 12+

I read most of my news from USA’s platform

I like USA Today’s general news application on the Apple iPhone. USA Today has started to charge a monthly subscription fee for certain articles but not all, not yet at least. The thing is I wouldn’t mind paying a premium for their content as I’ve stated in previous reviews that I’ve read them for years and they have proven to me well worth it. However there s a negative, chiefly some of the articles which only subscribed paying members can obtain access to can be viewed for free on their very own platform through googling the articles headline. Secondly the monthly subscription price is simply to high. I would be willing to pay a couple dollars at most per month on a permanent basis. One more thing of note would be is perhaps you can view the article for free on google as opposed to the app is perhaps their intending on capitalizing on the convenience of going though the app. If this is the case even though their customers once realized you can obtain the article for free through Google will perhaps still feel like their getting cheated. Hope my review helps in some contributing factor.

Developer Response ,

We appreciate your feedback. We've made improvements to the latest app update to address this. Please reach out to us at USATODAYmobile@USATODAY.com so we can better investigate and resolve this issue. Thank you!

I wish I could rate 4 or 5 stars

I have enjoyed reading the news on the USA Today app for years. Recently the experience changed when some content was blocked and available only to subscribers. I’m sympathetic to the challenges faced by the print media and decided to go with a digital subscription especially since I like USA Today so much. That’s where the frustration started. Once I paid for my subscription naturally I expected to no longer have access blocked as only being available to subscribers but sure enough that is exactly what happened no matter what I did. Even after signing in. Since it was the weekend I only had the chat option for customer support and their suggestion was to call customer support on Monday. So I called customer support on Monday and they told me the same thing - can’t find my account, despite me having a receipt from Apple proving I paid for my digital subscription 48 hours. Their suggestion? Call back in 24 hours! Not sure how that’s going to help. The lack of helpful customer service (precipitated by the lack of a seamless process in 2021 to recognize when a reader has converted to a paid subscriber) holds me back from being able to rate higher than average. Please help!

Reporting is not what it used to be

I can remember seeing my first USA Today newspaper back in the early 80’s when I was a young guy in the Air Force. It was so innovative. We always had a copy in our break room. It was always nice seeing som info from my home state. USA Today has changed.
I’m at the point now that I’m thinking I need to part ways. For one, I’m really frustrated with the app. It plays video ads that I can’t stop. It pushes subscriber only articles which I don’t want to see since I’m not a subscriber. It nags me to subscribe. It repeats articles in the grid which wastes my time. The app lose my context and completely reloads when I switch to answer a text message and come back.
Secondly, the article editing is pretty bad. I see grammar and punctuation errors frequently. It looks like the writers do their own editing.
Thirdly, USA Today has lost its focus on news and has become more of an editorial dispenser. This is not a problem unique to USA Today in 2021. The news media in general has lost its ability to inform and has instead tried to become an influencer, bordering on just straight propaganda. Ironically, I have to work harder at getting to facts in 2021 than I did in 1982.
Sorry USA Today, you just aren’t excellent at anything these days. Why should you get my eyeballs?