Obsolete: Torygraph wins most memorable front page of last 100 years.

Friday, May 26, 2006

Torygraph wins most memorable front page of last 100 years.

One wonders whether editors of all three of the other broadsheets, as well as the Sun are feeling rather peeved about the Telegraph winning the Newsnight vote for most memorable front page of the last 100 years with its September the 12th 2001 issue. After all, they all used the exact same photograph.

Dame Pauline Double-Barreled Name advocated it because:

An unforgettable image, of New York's Twin Towers ablaze and falling, together with a simple headline, and covering the entire page of a broadsheet newspaper.

Dame Pauline Neville-Jones, former diplomat and chair of the Joint Intelligence Committee, argues that an event that seemingly ushered the world into a new era of uncertainty, has enduring significance.

Well yes, but that's lauding the event rather the front page itself isn't it? Her other reason was that the front page was clean. Yet the Guardian, Independent and Sun front pages were arguably even cleaner; they didn't have any other text apart from the headline, while the Torygraph had the start of the article.

Obsolete voted for the Sun's Gotcha!, mainly because it sums up everything bad about tabloid journalism in one handy front page. The Guardian front page on Jonathan Aitken and the Mail front page on the killers of Stephen Lawrence were the best actual front pages, which were not just depending on the event, but putting it in context of top class investigative and campaigning journalism.