Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Front Page News

We all watched yesterday as Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th president of the Untied States. In fact, it made front page news across most of the country. See, here's the proof in the Washington Post:


In the New York Times:

USAToday ran with a really, really big picture:

I said “most of the country” because, apparently, in Atlanta, the inauguration of America's first black president wasn't that big of a news story. Instead, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution decided the bigger, and more important front-page story was former President George W. Bush's return to Texas.

My old editor would get annoyed when we got beaten to the news of a car accident by another media outlet. Can you explain to me how Bush's arrival in Dallas was a bigger story than Obama taking the, albeit messed up by Chief Justice John Roberts, oath of office?

They did include a "Note to Our Readers" explaining it thus: "Because of our special Inauguration 2009 section, you'll find non-inauguration national, international and local news in this section." In my experience, if you're including a front-page note to your readers, you've screwed up somewhere. Big. It's almost as bad as a front-page retraction.

Seriously? You couldn't have maybe shoehorned a picture of the front of the new president's face on the front page of your paper? I'm stunned. Seriously staggered by this choice of photos in a major American newspaper.

For some more great images of today's front pages go to the
Poynter Institute’s Web site. These are some really cool front pages.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Did you rob the Newseum? What did I tell you about doing that?

FoggyDew said...

Tino- No robbing involved. I took 'em fair and square from the paper's Web sites. If they didn't want me to right click and save as, they wouldn't have posted 'em. Right?

Anonymous said...

As Arjewtino alludes, this is a great time to take a stroll by the Newseum where the front pages from scores of newspapers are displayed in their ground floor windows.

...and yeah, AJC, what the #$%$ were you thinking?

FoggyDew said...

Ref - May have to take a walk along that stretch of sidewalk. And the AJC's excuse is probably, "But we have a whole special section!" Not good enough.

Anonymous said...

Hilarious observation. Poor Atlantans stuck with that for news.

FoggyDew said...

charlotte - I know it might be enough to get me to cancel my subscription. What were you thinking AJC?

Anonymous said...

...please where can I buy a unicorn?