"today", with the american newspaper "usa today" as an inspiration, launched on tuesday 4 march 1986, with the front-page headline, "second spy inside gchq". at 18p (equivalent to p in ), it was a middle-market tabloid, a rival to the long-established "daily mail" and "daily express". it pioneered computer photo-typesetting and full-colour offset printing at a time when national newspapers were still using linotype machines, letterpress and could only reproduce photographs in black and white. the colour was initially crude, produced on equipment which had no facility for colour proofing, so the first view of the colour was on the finished product. however, it forced the conversion of all uk national newspapers to electronic production and colour printing. the newspaper's motto, hung in the newsroom, was "propa truth, not propaganda".