If only we could have historic events every day, maybe newspapers wouldn’t be in such trouble. Some very nice A1s ran this morning.
The nicest A1 I saw was from Mr. Obama’s hometown tabloid, the Chicago Sun-Times. Simple. The Des Moines Register‘s was simple and effective and I’m a fan of not trying to make the headline do too much. We know who Barack Obama is and what his victory means. No need to do too beat readers over the head with your, um, hed. The Gazette‘s Yes, He Did! is too obvious (we saw tons of Yes, He Did and Yes, He Can heds today, best to avoid the cliche). The layout is striking, though. The Press-Citizen was apparently in a Star Wars mood after CNN’s Princess Leia hologram. Or perhaps those on the universal desk there are too young to know better remember the original movie’s full title (it was 1977, after all). The Sioux City Journal again tries to do too much. No need to root. Understated heds only, please. The worst was from the Weatherford (Oklahoma) Daily News. Simply awful. The Rockdale (Georgia) Citizen was awful, too; It led with a dog story (albeit a dog-attacks-school-kids story).
