Last night news came that the United States had killed Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan. At some point while watching all the coverage, Amy and I discussed what the headlines in the morning newspapers. Here in Washington, commuters are given free versions of The Washington Post and The Washington Examiner when walking in to and out of Metro stations. (No free versions of The Washington Times.) I thought that the free morning papers would surely have big bold headlines about the death of Bin Laden. Amy said that the full versions of each paper would, but that the free versions wouldn’t because they’re printed earlier than the full papers. She said that the free papers never even get sports scores when the games end after 10. I figured that the news of Bin Laden’s death was before 11:00pm, which is early by newspaper standards, plus this was a huge enough story worth stopping the presses for. We were both right.
The Washington Post’s free “Express” totally missed the boat with no mention of Bin Laden’s death. But the Washington Examiner was able to get news of Bin Laden’s death into their free edition. It was only a short article added at the last second but they got it done while the Post dropped the ball. But to add insult to injury, on my way home I got off the Metro around 6:30pm and the Examiner had a guy there handing out “Extra” versions of their free paper with a new front page (saying “We got him!”) and much more detailed coverage of Bin Landen’s death, from the military operation in Pakistan to the late night celebrations in front of the White House. Post; you got housed… twice!
But I was also curious to see how the newspaper headlines went throughout the rest of the country. Every day the Newseum, located right here in Washington DC, displays front pages from newspapers around the world. I could have hopped on Metro again to see how the news was delivered in other places, but luckily the Newseum displays these daily front pages online too. Check out all the different front pages from March 2nd’s big news here.
