Since 1975, St. Petersburg’s Poynter Institute for Media Studies has been instructing journalists and media leaders. The non-profit journalism school, which has controlling stock in the St. Petersburg Times and Congressional Quarterly, has long embodied the nexus between journalism and democracy.
Now Poynter deserves journalistic — and entrepreneurial — credit for its commemorative book, “President Obama/Election 2008.” It’s a collection of representative newspaper front pages chronicling the historic presidential election of Barack Obama. It’s time capsule stuff that transcends America, and possibly America’s partisan politics, although you’ll likely not find it on Sam Rashid’s cocktail table.
In “President Obama,” Poynter has culled 75 front pages – from the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal to The Jakarta Post of Indonesia, The Daily Nation of Nairobi, Kenya, and The Daily Telegram of London. There was also a sampling of college papers and the ethnic/racial press.
The headlines range from the Honolulu Star-Bulletin’s exclamatory “Obama!” and the Willamette (OR) Week’s exultant “O, Yeah” to the Jakarta Post’s “Barry’s Done It!” and the (Warsaw, Poland) Gazeta Wyborcza’s “OBAMERYKA!”
All 50 states are represented, some – such as Florida – with more than one publication. The Florida entries are from Miami, Orlando, St. Petersburg and Tampa. Interestingly enough, the actual newspapers are the Miami Herald, the Orlando Sentinel, the St. Petersburg Times and the Tampa, uh, the Florida Courier, an African-American weekly.
Had to be a tough call. Include the competition or include more diversity?