A year later, Curley announced that USA Today was in the black – showing its first monthly profit six months earlier than Curley himself had projected. And both USA Today and Gannett's other papers were improving, thanks to an infusion of talent.

"The industry was changing. Advertisers had more choices. We had to make sure USA Today was a stronger news operation," Curley says.

"Again and again he has insisted we have to make the newspapers better," USA Today editor Peter Pritchard said of Curley in 1990. "He really believes quality is the key to circulation."

Gannett thrived under Curley's "speak softly and carry a good story" leadership. During the years he was CEO, Gannett stock value increased 346 percent; annual revenue rose from $2.8 billion in 1986 to $6.2 billion in 2000. Circulation of Gannett's daily papers grew by more than a million.

Pretty good for a small-town Pennsylvania boy who started his journalism career at age 13 covering sports for the Easton Express. He earned 12 cents an inch for his words – and the occasional enmity of athletes.

"If somebody had a good game, I cited them. If they had a bad game, I cited them," he says.

By the time he left Easton for Dickinson College, Curley was hooked on the news business. He edited the college paper, got a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University, and went to work for the Associated Press. After stints at a string of small New Jersey papers, Curley joined Gannett in 1969 as suburban editor of the Rochester Times-Union.

At Gannett, Curley's career went into overdrive. By 1980 he had been editor and publisher of papers in New Jersey and Delaware and was tapped to replace Jack Germond as Washington bureau chief and general manager of Gannett News Service.

Curley focused on stories of national interest. Under his leadership, Gannett became the first news service to win a Pulitzer Prize – for an exposé of a financial scandal involving an order of Catholic monks.

Curley's "beyond the Beltway" focus shaped USA Today when he became its first editor in 1982. "It had to be a paper that readers west of the Hudson related to," Curley says.

While the journalism elite scoffed, Curley and company created a paper that reported "what worked" as well as what didn't and told stories with color photos and striking graphics. Not only did the formula work for Gannett, it has been copied by many of the newspapers that once scorned it.

John Curley retired as chairman of Gannett on January 31. Now he's teaching seminars on leadership in journalism at Dickinson College and Pennsylvania State University.

"As a leader you get to set the tone, set the vision," he tells students. "Don't get bogged down in doing people's jobs – just make sure that they are all pulling in the same direction." When John Curley led Gannett, the direction was always us.