Sharing is Paring: Newspaper covers from the 2020 presidential election

Election nights in a newsroom were always some of my favorites. Adrenaline-fueled deadline pressure, writing headlines for those races that stunned America, and election night pizza, of course! While I left the daily grind of a newsroom in 2018, I’ve been fortunate this year to be working with a client that had me back in the election night action for this historic presidential election.

The day after Election Day, or in 2020, the day after it’s finally decided, I love to visit Newseum to browse front pages from around the country. I had two takeaways from browsing the collection.

1. Not only did this election make history, it had major global ramifications. Senator Kamala Harris will be the first woman and the first person of color to serve as vice president. The late Ruth Bader Ginsburg said “Women belong in all places where decisions are being made” and I am so happy Vice President-Elect Harris will be in that room.

Front pages from newspapers around the globe carried news of the Joe Biden-Kamala Harris victory. While the outcome of an election might not always merit front-page consideration, that definitely wasn’t the case this year.

Sunday front pages from The Sunday Times (Australia) and the Sunday Star (Canada).

2. The large newspaper groups are learning how to share content and design on a large scale. The newspaper industry was experiencing large losses in advertising long before coronavirus became a part of our everyday lingo. Facing these deep, deep losses in revenue put the heat on companies to implement as many cost-saving measures as possible. That often came in the form of centralized operations, resulting in layoffs, furloughs and other reductions. What we see on major news events like an election is a shared content approach where coverage — including content and design — is doled out to the family of newspapers in an effort to save duplication of work.

That was crystal clear looking at front pages from around the U.S. on Sunday morning. It was easy to tell which paper was owned by McClatchy, Advance, Tribune, Gannett or Lee based entirely on the design I saw over and over and over.

And over.

It made my heart hurt a little that the opportunity I loved so much every election — to put my own special touch on a page — isn’t afforded to many newsrooms anymore.

There were, of course, exceptions. My favorite headline came from the Boston Globe (Biden, Harris, and History). I thought The New York Times and The Washington Post had lovely, clean covers.

It will be interesting to see where the industry is four years from now, won’t it?