Leading US newspapers said on Wednesday they had been forced to fire up their printing presses again to keep pace with demand as consumers sought out mementos of president-elect Barack Obama’s historic election.
In the capital, about 400 people formed a line in front of the office of the Washington Post to buy the newspaper after copies sold out across the city early in the morning.
The Post, which increased its normal print run by 30 percent, said it had decided to produce an extra 250,000 copies of a special commemorative edition.
PHOTO: AP
“I have a two-year-old grandchild and I’m going to keep a copy for her,” said Vernon Short, a 68-year-old retired military man, as he waited in the line for the special edition.
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime thing and I want to have a reminder,” he said.
The New York Times said it had increased its normal morning print run by 35 percent but had gone back to press to produce another 75,000 copies.
At the imposing headquarters of the Chicago Tribune, a long line of people snaked out of the lobby and around the block to get their hands on its commemorative edition.
The paper restarted its presses in the morning after the initial print run of 690,000 copies sold out in the early hours. The Tribune’s vice president of operations, Becky Brubaker, said the second run would number up to 120,000 papers.
Francine Garner, 48, was at the front of the line at the Washington Times headquarters and had been waiting three hours for the commemorative edition to go on sale.
“It’s about keeping track of history and having something you can keep forever,” she said.
Rima Calderon, head of communications for the Washington Post, said the events of Wednesday proved the popularity of papers in an age when many are predicting their demise in the face of online competition.
“It does say something really marvelous about the printed newspaper. When there’s a historic event like last night people want a printed copy for posterity,” she said.
“We didn’t realize that the demand would be so large,” she said.
The Chicago Sun-Times said it had printed extra “tens of thousands” of copies but had also been forced back to press.
“To meet the seemingly unending demand, several thousand extra copies are being printed,” it said in an online message.
For those who were unable to buy the historic edition of their favorite paper on the street, the Internet auction house e-Bay listed hundreds of copies of the day’s New York Times, Chicago Tribune and other papers for sale, many for hundreds of dollars apiece. The high bid for a copy of the New York Times was US$400. “When there are key events of political significance going on, e-Bay is a great place to see how much the public are prepared to pay for these items,” said Nichola Sharpe, a company spokeswoman.
Newspapers were not the only news sources in demand as CNN.com and other online news sites reported record traffic on Tuesday.
CNN.com said it received the largest daily audience in its history on Tuesday with 30 million unique visitors, more than double the previous record of 13.4 million unique visitors during the Democratic primaries on Super Tuesday.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of