I Want My Obama Headlines (to hoard in the basement)
I was cleaning out the basement last week and found a giant plastic tub full of newspapers I’ve collected over the years. With 150 pt. headlines screaming “Twin Towers Terror,” “Space Shuttle Columbia Tragedy,” and “War With Iraq Imminent,” it’s a blast to page through these keepsakes and know I’ll have a special piece of history, albeit yellowed, to share with my kids in 30 years.
Despite the prevalence of online media and the decline of the newspaper industry, people still want a printed piece of history when there’s a major national event.
Select quotes the AP today:
Newsstands from Seattle to New York quickly sold out of Wednesday’s papers declaring Barack Obama the nation’s first black president as some jubilant customers picked up two, three or even 30 copies as keepsakes……Entrepreneurs were seeking as much as $600 for the Times on eBay Wednesday.
“Own a piece of history,” Walter Elliott said as he hawked 90 copies of The Sun from a Baltimore street corner….
… Say what you want about the Internet replacing printed newspapers, but saving a copy of a Web page on a disk isn’t the same.
The New York Times had to restart their presses to have enough copies for the eager public. In Chicago, the initial “Obama: Our Next President” November 5 edition run was approximately 690,000 copies, but according to Tower Ticker, the presses wound up running off 410,000 extra copies. That’s a lot of papers.
I’m the biggest new media snob you’ll meet, but I too understand the value of a printed newspaper as a physical keepsake. However, I wouldn’t be too quick to think a one-time spike in sales will save the industry’s outdated model or compel me to start a (gasp!) print subscription.
I had already read all the articles online (and can easily pull up those stories in a search engine years from now), so my copy was immediately tucked into that rubber tub in the basement where 30 years from now my kids can roll their eyes and recycle them.
You see, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel created a gallery of “Historic 2008 election front pages from newspapers around the world” so you can check them out without paying 500% markup on eBay and filling your basement with clutter.
Now that’s Change We Need.
Tags: 2008 election, Barack Obama, elections, New York Times, Newspaper, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
