Page One of the Chicago Sun-Times
The best front pages from around the world of Barack Obama’s landslide victory in the 2008 U.S. Election.
I have been through Newseum this morning and have selected what I think are the top 27 best front page designs from the U.S.A presidential election.
Number one has to be the paper I reached for at the end of the driveway at 6 a.m. The Chicago Sun-Times hits the high mark today in, arguably, a most classic and historic fashion.
What they accomplished is what few other editors do well. Find the perfect photo write the most iconic and original headline words possible and get out of the way.
That’s the art of the front page (In full disclosure I did in a former life design the newspaper’s front page - from 2001 to 2005.)
Yes, the Chicago Tribune also made my list below.
UPDATE: They are selling a souvenir edition today with a different front page design.
Best Front page designs from U.S.A presidential election. Chicago journalist and Page One designer, Robb Montgomery, selected these papers from around the world.
How non-U.S. papers played the news
In all I made 27 picks but here are the standouts from around the globe from newspapers that had filed final results pages to Newseum.
The United Evening News, Taipei, Taiwan
Der Tagesspiegel, Berlin, Germany
Aftonbladet, Stockholm, Sweden
Le Soleil, Canada
How U.S. newspaper editors played the news
Browsing through the USA front page collection was a little sad this morning. There were many papers that chose cliché, redundant, or newsy headlines. There were many poor word choices including “Obama Wins” and many others that used ‘History’ or worse, “Historic victory.”
Poor news choices because no newspaper publishing anywhere was in a position to actually break the news of this landslide victory. Using ‘Historic” in a headline is not the same thing as writing a headline with a sense for history. That task requires greater craft.
Here’s some examples that demonstrate the finer art. The editors of these papers found the right image, the right words, the right perspective and most importantly edited wisely: Like the Chicago Sun-Times Page One, these USA pages are decisive, uncomplicated and iconic.
Sioux City Journal
Tulsa World
(Full Disclosure - I was a teenage newspaper carrier for the World from 1980-1982)
The Times-Picayune
Omaha World-Herald
Notice a pattern here? These are papers from smaller markets. Even papers from states that didn’t help elect Mr. Obama.
That is what surprised me. The bigger markets produced some of the more uninteresting and least iconic pages of the lot.
As promised above, here’s the Chicago Tribune’s front page. The editor is obviously conflicted about which photo to lead with, Obama or his Grant Park crowd.
In the end he decided to compromise and run both. While, that decision may work to soothe newsroom politics and egos, it rarely works out front. Still if you are an editor who can’t decide which is the best picture to run on an historic day, at least you can learn from this example.
You may not produce a page with a sense for history but at least though competent cropping and a proper application of scale, you can achieve the next best thing, a page that doesn’t altogether fail.
This page works because the staff smartly swept away all other news and flitterati off of the page.
I wonder if readers will find that the two wide columns of type at bottom are far too wide to be comfortably read.
The slideshow
The complete collection is in this slideshow. You may have to hit refresh to see all 27 pages.
What are your favorite front pages from today? Did we miss your iconic production?
Please contact me and pass me your front page!
An update from the newspaper wars in Chicago
The Chicago Tribune’s Steve Cavendish passed along this image of a later edition cover of the paper.
Not sure yet how many copies of this version made it out to the paper’s core suburban readership - I have asked him for figures.
5:35 UPDATE: I have now heard back from two Chicago Tribune visual editors Steve Cavendish and Ryan Smith - the paper’s Page one designer about the first edition that went to out to readers and also to the Newseum site where it joined other paper’s first editions.
From Steve:
First edition was set up without a call on the race, initially. But when California and the west coast put him over, we were able to change the headline but not the color. Subsequent editions are significantly different.
From Ryan:
I also think you should own up to some rather incomplete reporting on your critique today. If you find fault in our final-edition page, that’s totally cool. I respect your opinion. The Sun-Times page was indeed understated and elegant. Quite beautiful. I would question the news judgment of the page and argue that the black and white file photo missed the opportunity to represent the jubilant, live even happening in Chicago, but that’s just my subjective criticism.
Anyway, as I said in the comment section of your critique, that first Tribune page you hammered was an early edition sent to 20,000 Midwest/nation subscribers. It was done to represent the live event at Grant Park and get a result in the edition.
The remaining 670,000 city and suburban readers received the final edition with Obama’s live photo from Grant Park. That same exact edition is what we printed another 400,000 copies of this afternoon and evening to try and meet demand. It is not a ’souvenir’ edition, although it does make a pretty cool souvenir!
OK, thanks for the update, gents.
It is true that the paper’s historic first edition will not be as memorable as the paper’s most famous post-election first edition - “Dewey Defeats Truman.”
Now, back to the later editions which are much improved and this version essentially boldfaces the arguments I have been making here with the other examples highlighted. You can’t get to a great front page if you don’t have a clear, original approach.
The page is similar to a street sales souvenir edition now being hawked in the streets of Chicago (And online by the paper’s own media critic.)
I have also just heard from Sun-Times design director Eric White. I asked if the paper was also updating their front page this morning.
His replies:
“We’re standing with the genius of James Smith. You get it right, the first time — why change?
;-)”
Well then, hat’s off to James Smith’s Sun-Times design but I am sure there will be another keepsake edition coming out soon. Until then . . .
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