MEAT CUTTER Jim Zillman, of Wausau, Wisc., yesterday told 1.1 million Americans that he thinks prison inmates should help clean up this nation's roads.

Zillman was one of seven Americans between California and Boston who voiced their opinions on prison overcrowding in a daily feature on the editorial page of yesterday's USA Today, the exciting new national newspaper.

Zillman said in a telephone interview yesterday that he and his neighbors love the nation's first general interest daily. "It gets into all the corners," said the 52-year-old, who still reads the local Daily Record-Herald as well. "They cover everything around the country--we don't always get a lot of that," he adds.

It's enthusiasm like Zillman's that has catapulted USA Today's circulation into third place among dailies, behind The Wall Street Journal and the New York Daily News. Just one year old and only on sale in New England one week, the 40-page, four-section daily's wide readership might seem surprising, given the frosty reception it receives. It seems whenever USA Today has debuted on a new set of streets, a chorus of criticism has been just around the corner.

In other newspapers, USA Today has been called "McPaper" because it delivers "fast food news," short articles packaged with colorful graphics. USA Today's controversial approach to delivering the news has in effect been treated like a news story itself: as the media tells it, the bite-sized items offered by television have now made their way into print. The results, critics conclude, is an alarming trend of superficiality that disregards the truth and threatens the institution of journalism.

But these fault-finders miss the point of USA Today entirely. Shocking as it may be, the splashy color, concise stories, full-color weather map, detailed TV listings and emphasis on entertainment news were not designed to please the Columbia Journalism Review. Those innovations are instead aimed at readers. It is that focus which makes USA Today the nation's only truly populist newspaper.

SINCE THE PAPER'S inception, editors have steadfastly maintained that they were publishing a paper for readers who wanted to supplement their regular news diet with a dose of Americana. Each day, the paper offers the weather, news and sports from all 50 states in addition to the day's big, national news stories, human interest features and an array of statistics displayed in easy-to-read charts. No other newspaper strikes the same enticing balance between being informative and easily readable.

This consistent packaging offers reliable service. Commented Chairman Allen H. Neuharth recently. "We are not seeking influence--in the normal media use of that term. We want to inform, we want to entertain, and we want to help bring about an understanding and a unity among people in this country...I make a distinction between that and the more traditional meaning of the words 'influence' or 'power.'"

Corny as that sounds, Neuharth refreshingly points out a difference between informing and educating in journalism. While USA Today's staff members presumably share humanitarian goals with their peers at other papers, they seem less obsessed with tradition and less impressed by themselves. Color pictures are more attractive, as any black-and-white television watcher can attest. Charts and graphs aid understanding, as any graduate of a high school algebra and trigonometry class knows. Most articles that continue beyond the page they start on fail to compel readers to turn the page. All sad but true facts for the newspaper traditionalist educator.

There might even he room for argument against the snappy, splashy USA Today approach if statistics suggested that the paper was weaning an uninformed public. But Simmons Market Research figures show nearly a majority of readers earn $35,000 a year and two-thirds have attended college almost exactly the demographic figures of The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.

More accessible than those two prestigious journals. USA Today shouldn't he criticized for what it isn't and what it doesn't try to be. When critics realize this, they will understand why Meatcutter Jim Zillman and millions of other Americans will continue to read and enjoy America's populist newspaper.