For a day, at least, newspapers in America were cool again. Cool enough for people to queue up around the block to buy them. The election of Barack Obama produced a clamour for newsprint that amazed, and delighted, publishers.
The reason? People didn't so much want to read them as keep them as souvenirs. As one man who waited half an hour to buy a copy of the New York Times explained: "This goes straight into a plastic bag. This is a black man becoming president. This is history."
Similar stories were told by publishers across the States. The Washington Post couldn't print enough copies to satisfy demand.
The Chicago Tribune hoped to sell an extra 20,000 copies but ended up selling 200,000.
Newspaper audiences also swelled online, breaking single-day records for internet traffic. (Sources: New York Times/CNN/Reuters)
