1982, initially in the Baltimore and Washington, D.C. metropolitan areas, for a newsstand price of 25¢ (equivalent to ¢ in ). After selling out the first issue, Gannett gradually expanded the national distribution of the paper, reaching an estimated circulation of 362,879 copies by the end of 1982, double the amount of sales that Gannett projected.

The design uniquely incorporated color graphics and photographs. Initially, only its front news section pages