President Obama: Election 2008: A Collection of Newspaper Front Pages Selected by the Poynter Institute Book

Reviewed for THC Reviews
The day after the 2008 Presidential Election, I decided to go out in search of a few newspapers besides our local one to purchase as keepsakes of this historic event. Foolishly, I didn't stop to think that everyone else would be doing the same thing and didn't go until mid-afternoon by which time the newsstands were completely empty. I went home feeling rather sad and dejected but resigned to the fact that I would only have the one paper for a memento. At least, that was, until I saw this book at Sam's Club, and immediately snapped up a copy.

The Poynter Institute, a premier school for journalism, had compiled together digital reproductions of 75 newspaper front pages into one volume, most of which I never could have gotten through local channels. Many of them have some really beautiful photos and well-written articles, and the editors of the book have captioned each one to explain its significance. The typeface in the actual newspaper articles is quite small but still clearly readable, and I relished taking the time to read each one (although most aren't complete articles since these are only the front pages). The book is presented in a large coffee-table format that would make a great keepsake for any collector of history or politics and most especially for people like myself who followed the election almost religiously but weren't able to acquire the actual newspapers. Not to mention, since it took less paper to produce, it's a more environmentally friendly alternative that also takes up less storage space.;-)