More Election 2008 Cover pages

More 5 November 2008 newspaper covers from around the globe...

Another one of my favorites from The Times-Picayune, New Orleans, Louisiana. You have to click on the image to get the full effect of the thumbnail portraits of the previous 43 presidents of this here "perfect union" states, with a pointed RGB choice for the 44th thumbnail.





From a "too-close-to-call" state, The Fayetteville Observer, Fayetteville, North Carolina.










Diario de Pernambuco, Pernambuco, Brasíl. One of the many covers from Brasíl acknowledging the historic precedent in relation to the racial history of the United States.







From La Tribune, Paris, France. A headline in English.


































A couple of odd-seeming images from Austrian newspapers. On the left the Salzburger Nachrichten, Salzburg, Austria; on the right Kurier, Vienna, Austria. Perhaps if I read German it wouldn't seem so strange to see a black child representing, um, who? Black American voters, Barack Obama? What about those hands on the presidential seal? They couldn't just use an AP image of Obama? Clearly those aren't his hands, coming out of an ill-fitting suit, holding a fake presidential seal...




Back to images that make sense...and I don't even read Hebrew. Maariv, Tel-Aviv, Israel...





... or Portuguese, Diário de Notícias, Lisbon, Portugal









I'd like to think their jubilation over Obama's victory might give Jamaica's journalists and other "mainstream" public voices impetus to consider his more tolerant stance on gays and lesbians (yes on civil unions, waffling on marriage, but a definite NO to sanctioning assault, rape, and murder as a public policy for accommodating some people's insecurity with sexual difference). The Gleaner, Kingston, Jamaica.

Newpapers capture the election results...

There's a great site, Newseum "the interactive museum of news," where you can access newspaper covers from 66 countries: 730 newspapers.

Go here for the covers from 5 November 2008.

I'll be posting a few samples over the next few days from various locales:

Oakland Tribune, Oakland California (where Proposition 8 banning gay marriage unfortunately passed) tooting "A New Era"




The Times, Johannesburg, South Africa

La Presse, Montreal, Canada














An-Nahar, Beirut, Lebanon
(Unfortunately, I can't read Arabic.)







The Gray Lady herself, The New York Times, proclaiming "racial barrier falls." They aren't the only one to advance this notion in their election results reportage. I mysefl wonder what journalists mean by this declaration?

'Now it's official, a black man can be elected to the highest office in the nation'? Hmm, well, when Harold Washington assumed the post we found 'a black man could become Mayor of Chicago.' But it's worth noting that history hasn't yet repeated itself in Chicago. Yes, a particular and singular black man can be elected to an office that previously excluded all black men--and black women for that matter--in a particular and singular moment in history. I think for a racial barrier to have truly fallen the result cannot be summed via a single, albeit mind-blowingly historic, victory. Black male and female elected officials would have to be serving in greater numbers as governers and congress-persons, really all through government. And they'd have to be allowed the priviledge of being as mediocre and ineffectual as some of their white counterparts, and for the same mundane reasons as their white counterparts OR of being as or more exceptionally skilled as their white counterparts without white people calling them arrogant, or making surprised statements as to the quality of their elocution and/or hygiene. Most importantly they wouldn't have to carry the almost unimaginable weight of being the first, this late in the game. But for the failure of the United States to follow through on the Reconstruction of the country, during and after the Civil War, it is entirely possible that neither President-Elect Obama nor Mayor Washington would have been "firsts." What a nation that might have been.


The Huntsville Times, Huntsville, Alabama. Interesting how the paper's photo choices foregrounds both the Obama family dynamic, and the obviously deep bond between wife and husband.







Chicago Sun-Times and Chicago Tribune, Chicago, Illinois both choose variations on an iconic presidential /statesman image.



















There were plenty of headlines shouting, "Yes He Did!" and variations on "Change Has Come." But one of my personal favorites comes from the Sioux City Journal, in Sioux City Iowa. It's direct and to the point: BELIEVE IT.

Yes We Can...

Still hasn't sunk in. So glad I have grandparents who lived to see this. So amazed to see this happen in my lifetime.

Matt Bai, political writer for the New York Times Magazine, from NYT's November 4, 2008 election coverage videos:

"It will be represented tomorrow as this huge victory for African Americans. But I really believe in the long view of history it is more than that. It is the breaking up of a 220-odd year monopoly on the presidency--with one small incursion by John Kennedy--but really a monopoly of white protestant men that I think all groups, women, Jews, Asian, Italians whoever else, I think all groups can look at this as a breach of a monopoly. And I think it's a huge generational moment, your and my generation [speaking to colleague Michael Cooper, political writer for the New York Times]--the generation after the boomers--kicks down the door of of American politics after a very long and unproductive governing period."


Tavis Smiley on MSNBC: "We are a better nation..." Smiley talks about this historic event and the weight of expectations that now surround President-elect Barack Obama.