Craig Moon's retirement as USA Today's president was "largely unexpected within Gannett," the Wall Street Journal reports. Apparently Moon couldn't work for a paper that is having trouble giving away copies.

More than half of USA Today's circulation is provided to hotel guests, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulation. The Gannett paper shows up "free" in front of guest's rooms. These copies can be booked as paid circulation since technically a guest could can return the paper for a nominal refund (no one ever does).

The recession has socked business travel, which in turn has taken 100,000 "subscribers" from a paper that once had a circulation of 2.3 million. The Journal:

Mr. Moon said in an interview that the slowdown has resulted in a reduction of more than 7% in the number of copies of USA Today distributed through partnerships with hotel chains such as Marriott...

Obviously USA Today should explore some kind of premium hotel content offerings. That's gone very well for other industries.

[WSJ]