Dutch papers cope with Obama vote timing

Wednesday 05 November 2008

Dutch newspapers struggled to cope with the inconvenient timing of the US presidential election result which finally came through at around 5am in the Netherlands.

Most of the papers played safe with headlines like the Volkskrant’s ‘Obama is in the lead’ and the Telegraaf’s ‘Sensational finale, Obama leads in the polls’.

But there were some innovative solutions too. Free newspaper De Pers, for example, had Obama as the winner on the front page and McCain as an alternative on the back page. As one radio commentator put it this morning, ‘they got it the right way round’.

NRC.Next took a do-it-yourself approach, providing just the title ‘The new president’ and a blank newspaper page. Instructions told the reader to check out the website after 7am, print out the story and glue it into position.

The paper also reports that Intermediair, the weekly magazine for academics and professionals, decided to take a gamble and will be published tomorrow with a picture of Obama on its cover.

‘In fact it’s a no-lose situation. If Obama wins, we just have a nice cover. If McCain wins, it will become a much-talked about collector’s item,’ Intermediair editor Peter ter Horst told NRC.Next.

Meanwhile the Financieele Dagblad headline reflected the mood of Wall Street bankers with the headline ‘Job is more important than president on Wall Street’, complete with a photo of a pin-striped gentleman sporting a stars-and-stripes tie.

© DutchNews.nl

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