Hold the front page

Despite my new found addiction to blogging, as a (former?) print journalist I feel I must record an event second only in terms of historic significance to the election of a black president. I speak, of course, of the unprecedented sight of people queueing round the block - round the block!! - to get their hands on a newspaper. Yes, that's right: that 20th century phenomenon widely reputed to be on its last legs was such hot property in cities across America today that entire print runs sold out. (One can only hope the same was true in the UK for the Independent or I seriously might have to become a full-time blogger, sorry, I meant Mum.) 

The Washington Post, the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun Times, were among those titles to rush special commemorative issues to the presses this afternoon in an attempt to satiate the demand that saw people queuing into the night outside drugstores across DC, such as the one on Dupont Circle snapped above by our young blogger, in the hope of getting their hands on a copy. This was despite newspapers upping their print runs by as much as a third. By lunchtime, even the Post's newsrooms had been stripped bare of the mountains of copies that normally lie around creating a fire hazard, one local source told us. 

For all those left disappointed by the restrictions placed on purchases - our local CVS was only allowing those queueing to buy one copy each - Louis has graciously offered to print off copies of his live election day blogging for free. He just asks that you send him a stamped address envelope. He'll even throw in some previously unreported footage, in the manner of those special edition DVDs that get rushed out for Christmas.