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time."
• After earning a bronze star in World War II and graduating with a journalism degree from the University of South Dakota, Neuharth worked for the AP for two years. He then launched a South Dakota sports weekly tabloid, SoDak Sports, in 1952. It was a spectacular failure, losing $50,000, but it was perhaps the best education Neuharth ever received.
• "Everyone should fail in a big way at least once before they're forty," he said in his autobiography. "The bigger you fail, the bigger you're likely to succeed later."
• Neuharth married three times. His first marriage to high school sweetheart Loretta Neuharth lasted 26 years. They had a son, Dan, and daughter, Jan. He married Lori Wilson, a Florida state senator, in 1973; they divorced in 1982. A decade later, he married Rachel Fornes, a chiropractor. Together, they adopted six children.
• After he retired from Gannett, Neuharth continued to write "Plain Talk," a weekly column for USA Today.
• He also founded the The Freedom Forum, a foundation dedicated to free press and free speech that holds journalism conferences, offers fellowships and provides training. It was begun in 1991 as a successor to the Gannett Foundation, the company's philanthropic arm.
• Jim Duff, president and chief executive officer of the Freedom Forum, said, "Al will be remembered for many trailblazing achievements in the newspaper business, but one of his most enduring legacies will be his devotion to educating and training new journalists," according to the post on the Newseum website. Duff added, "He taught them the importance of not only a free press but a fair one."
• With his entrepreneurial flair, Neuharth put the Freedom Forum on the map with Newseum, an interactive museum to show visitors how news is covered. The first museum in Arlington, Va., was open from 1997 to 2002. It was replaced by a $450 million facility in Washington that opened in spring 2008. There was also the Newscapade, a $5 million traveling exhibit.
• In a June 2007 interview in Advertising Age, Neuharth was asked about the future of printed newspapers amid the upheavals of the news business.
• "The only thing we can assume is that consumers of news and information will continue to want more as the world continues to become one global village," he said. "The question is how much will be distributed in print, online and on the air. I don't know how much will be delivered on newsprint. Some will be delivered by means we can't even think of yet."
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